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Kidson, Frank
The beggar's opera
The "Beggar's Opera
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
LONDON I FETTER LANE, E.G. 4
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY j
CALCUTTA 1- MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
MADRAS j
TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF
CANADA, LTD.
TOKYO ! MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Beggar's Opera
Its 'Predecejfors and
Succejfbrs
FRANK KIDSON
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
"To my friend
ALFRED MQFF4T
in memory ofAuldLang Syne
ML
113
PREFACE
)8(O the late Victorian The Beggar's
Opera is but a name; to his father
or grandfather it may have been a
memory of some imperfect repre-
sentation— perhaps as cut down to an after-piece
— given at a provincial theatre.
Apart from its dramatic appeal, the opera quickly
became a classic Its vigour, its picturesqueness,
its unfolding of a bygone life, its association with
Pope, Swift, and others of that coterie have made
it of permanent interest to the literary man.
This little volume aims at presenting in a handy
form such facts as bear upon the inception of
Gay's masterpiece and its influence upon the
English stage; and secondly at giving a brief
account of the Italian operas that preceded it and
of the ballad operas for which it led the way.
The recent production has caused a renewed
interest in The Beggar's Opera and given to the
twentieth century a glimpse of the dramatic art
which delighted generations of our ancestors.
F.K.
MAY, 1922.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . PAGE i
OPERA IN ENGLAND PRIOR TO
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA ... 6
THE GENTLE SHEPHERD: THE FIRST
BALLAD OPERA .
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA: ITS CONCEP-
TION
JOHN GAY
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS OF
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA .
THE MUSIC OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
AND ITS SOURCES . . . • .
POLLY: THE SEQUEL TO THE BEG-
GAR'S OPERA
THE PUBLICATION OF THE BEGGAR'S
OPERA
PRODUCTION AND CRITICISM .
LATER BALLAD OPERAS .
INDEX
29
34
39
43
64
80
86
92
100
105
ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN GAY .... FRONTISPIECE
From the mezzotint by Milvus after the portrait by
William Aikman.
FACING PAGE
SCENE FROM THE GENTLE SHEPHERD 30
From the illustration by David Allan in the edition
of 1788.
BURLESQUE OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA 36
By William Hogarth. The opera is being per-
formed at a fair. Ballad-sheets are on the wall to
the left, and gallows in the background. The
orchestra consists of a dulcimer, a hum-thrum (a
bladder on a bowstring), a bag-pipe, a salt-box and
other rude instruments. Harmony is flying from the
scene and the following verse is appended to the
picture:
Britons attend — view this harmonious stage,
And listen to those notes which charm the age;
Thus shall your taste in sounds and sense be shown,
And Beggar's Operas ever be your own.
SCENE FROM THE BEGGAR'S OPERA . 58
From William Hogarth's picture, showing Mac-
heath in Newgate and Polly and Lucy appealing
for him. The fashionable audience of the first night
are seen in the stage boxes.
Illustrations
TITLE-PAGE OF POLLY. ... 80
From the octavo edition of 1729.
TITLE-PAGE OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA 86
From the first edition, published in 1728.
SCENE FROM THE BEGGAR'S OPERA . 90
From Francis Hayman's frontispiece to the edition
of 1765, showing Lucy, Macheath, and Polly
with Peachum in the prison scene. The Newgate
'Ordinary,' or Chaplain, is in the background.
(Act n.)
THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN ... 98
By William Hogarth. Pietro Castrucci, the leader
and first violin of the Italian Opera, is seen at the
window. A playbill of The Beggar's Opera is
pasted on the wall and a ballad -singer is chanting
the ballad The Ladies' Fall.
Ir
.Js^
THE "BEGGARS OPERA
INTRODUCTION
perennial success of The Beggar's
r-p» Opera^ which has retained its popu-
£§2, $& larity for nearly a couple of centuries,
cQwiu *a* €>?
^(SASts^s^ forms a record in dramatic produc-
/y\ jsU*j *vLUj /***
tions. The causes of this popularity have varied
with each generation, and the original source of
its favour has long ago been lost and given place
to one quite different from what the author ex-
pected or perhaps desired. It is very doubtful if
John Gay saw more in his work than an ephemeral
satire on passing phases of the day. He could not
have foretold that the piece would run even the
sixty-three nights of the season at Lincoln's Inn
Theatre, and, while he may have expected that
some abuse would be hurled at the satire contained
in the opera, he certainly did not think that the
creation of Macheath, his gang, and women fol-
lowers would be denounced as incentives to vice
and immorality. It has been the fate of The
K. B.O. I
INTRODUCTION
Beggar's Opera to draw forth much mistaken in-
vective, while the lesson which Gay undoubtedly
wished to teach was ignored or unnoticed.
I have said that the causes which have made the
piece such a favourite with all classes and with
generations that have widely differed in thought
were many, and it is my task in the following
pages, before dealing with the opera itself, to try
to realise them for the reader. In view of this it
becomes necessary to refer to the state of the
musical drama in England during the reigns of
Queen Anne and of George I, with some notice
of earlier productions.
In the early part of the eighteenth century that
portion of the nation which ever sought its musical
art from other countries welcomed opera as it
appeared on the Italian stage, and applauded its
transfer to the English boards with all its company
of foreign exponents. This class of opera was in
full swing when Gay offered his piece to the public.
The 'man in the street' was silent and to a certain
extent uncatered for. He kept away from the
Italian operas and confessed that they were things
he could not understand or appreciate at their true
value — if value they had. At any rate he had little
sympathy with what he called the 'squallings' of
these foreign men and women in a language which
he did not understand and to music of which he
INTRODUCTION
had an equally poor opinion. The Beggars Opera
had an appeal to the ordinary man not only for
its wit, its satire, its picturesqueness, but, musically,
for the pretty, simple airs that were plentifully
besprinkled throughout it. Every man and woman
could sing them, and that they were favourites,
apart from their place in the opera, is shown by
the popularity of many of them for a century and
a half after their original publication. Of such airs
as 'Cease your funning' instrumental arrange-
ments are plentiful among the music sheets of
sixty or seventy years ago, and the lively melody
' If the heart of a man is depressed with cares' was
kept alive in Victorian drawing-rooms by its use
for the * bowing figure' in the Lancers.
The great run of the opera's recent revival at
Hammersmith, with its touring companies and
full houses wherever performed, shows how ready
we of the twentieth century are to appreciate its
pictures of old-time life, its old-time satire, its
quaint dresses, picturesque dances, and sparkling
music, simple though that music be. The Beggar's
Opera is so much of a classic that we may easily
grant that the present run will not end its career
on the English stage, and we may expect revival
after revival, each possibly with what may be
termed a 'new reading' as each actor-manager
sees it in his own light. He would be a vandal
INTRODUCTION
indeed who would tamper with its music, but
who can tell whether or no such vandal may
arise? In the course of its passage down to our
time the opera has had its ordeals, and actors and
managers have played not very kindly tricks with
it. Fortunately for the present day representation,
the producers have gone to the original source and
discarded modern innovations and omissions. For
the piece has suffered its martyrdom at the hands
of country managers of stock companies, who have
used it in their need for after-pieces and other
exigences. There were no acting fees to pay, no
author to appease for the mutilation of the piece.
Like Shakespeare's work, it was common property
and was able to stand all the ignominy that such
persons put upon it and to sustain its effect in
spite of inartistic tamperings. Managers always
found it a safe 'draw,' no matter whether Polly
could, or could not, sing the airs allotted to her;
whether or no Macheath was inadequate, the
piece drew its audience in every provincial theatre
a hundred and less years ago.
Popular songs of the day were interpolated and
little heed taken of the unities of the story, and
every budding Polly Peachum, no doubt knowing
of the good fortune of her predecessor in the
past, dreamed silently of the duke who was going
to take her from the stage. Lavinia Fenton was
INTRODUCTION
an unknown woman, young and pretty perhaps,
but chance turned her into a duchess, and so.. ..But
no duke after that of Bolton sought a Polly
Peachum of a later date, and the Pollies of the
provincial stage had to be content with what
fortune granted them.
OPERA IN ENGLAND PRIOR TO
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
we can fully realise the enor-
|^ TJ ^ mous influence The Beggar's Opera
$$ D ££ had upon the English stage in regard
****t|>* to musical pieces, it will be necessary
to deal, at least briefly, with the musical drama
before Gay's production was staged.
How the English stage became overridden by
foreign productions is one of those mysteries that
will never be solved. The sturdy English character
which was supposed to prevail in the eighteenth
century and to repudiate 'anything foreign' was
not greatly in evidence among the more cultured,
for this class accepted without a murmur — save
one of satisfaction — foreign music, foreign singers,
foreign dancing-masters, and much that was really
alien to the nation.
In the reign of Elizabeth and in that of James I
masques were a great feature in Court entertain-
ments. They were performed also at Lincoln's
Inn, Gray's Inn, and similar places, while equally
elaborate ones were done at the houses of the
nobles. Ben Jonson was author of many of these
masques, and the notable Comus^ written by John
Earlier OPERAS in England 7
Milton for his friend Henry Lawes, shows us the
type that was in vogue. Milton's Comus was
written for an entertainment at the house of the
Earl of Bridgewater and performed by his children
and their music-master, Henry Lawes, in 1634.
How Thomas Augustine Arne, then a young
man, in 1738 wrote fresh music to Milton's
words (with additions to the words by Dr Dalton),
and the exquisite quality and beauty of that
music, are matters perhaps outside the present
essay. It is sufficient to know that the masques of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
dressed in costume, and had scenery, properties,
and music. Each had a plot, frequently founded
on some classic story or legend. That of Comus
was founded upon the incident of one of the Earl's
children being lost in a wood. How much these
masques differed from the operas of later date is
not very clear; at any rate, the dividing-line can-
not have been very definite or certain.
During the Commonwealth (in 1642) stage-
plays were prohibited, and the musical, as well as
the legitimate, drama was under a cloud. At the
same time private musical entertainments of the
order of masque or opera were in vogue to a
limited degree. At this time the opera in Italy
was in a very flourishing state and had taken a
particular and well-understood form.
8 Earlier OPERAS in England
Sir William Davenant had been the producer of
many masques and musical entertainments, and
he obtained permission from Cromwell to open a
semi-private theatre at Rutland House for the
performance of these and similar pieces. One
was The first dayes Entertainment at Rutland
House, by declamations and musick after the
manner of the ancients. This was performed in
1656, and as the words were in Italian the Pro-
tector very sagely allowed it because he opined
it could have no harmful influence, being in a
language not generally understood. The music
for this piece, whatever its character, was supplied
by Henry Lawes, Dr Charles Coleman, Henry
Cooke, and George Hudson. It has been asserted
that this was the first attempt at opera in England,
but it is doubtful whether it can be ranked as one;
a stronger claim can be made for another of Sir
William Davenant's productions, The Siege of
Rhodes. This was acted at the semi-private theatre
at Rutland House, Charterhouse Square, in 1656.
It was again acted at a theatre which Davenant
opened in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In this perform-
ance more elaborate setting was given, with a
second part added. After the Restoration John
Evelyn, under the date January Qth, 1662, records
that he saw the second part of The Siege of
Rhodes.
Earlier OPERAS in England 9
The printed libretto of The Siege of Rhodes
refers to the composers who were claimed to be
'the most transcendent of England in that art,
and perhaps not unequal to the best masters
abroad.' The audience are informed that the
music is 'recitative and therefore unpractised here,
though of great reputation amongst other nations.'
The composers were H. Lawes, Matthew Lock,
Dr Coleman, H. Cooke, and G. Hudson.
Of the many masques and musical entertain-
ments that Davenant produced, the above-named
Siege of Rhodes appears to have been the most
famous and the most popular. He followed this
success by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru.
This was in 1658, and Evelyn saw it on May 5th,
1659. ^e describes it as 'a new opera after the
Italian way in recitative music and scenes, much
inferior to the Italian composure and magnificence;
but it was prodigious that in a time of such
public consternation such a vanity should be
kept up or permitted.'
It was in Davenant's pieces that female actors
are said to have been first seen on the stage. Both
he and his son, Dr Charles Davenant, must be
given credit for their activity in producing musical
plays and, as it were, paving the way for the
operas and musical dramas that Henry Purcell
glorified by his music.
io Earlier OPERAS in England
But Davenant, although he led the way, was
not the only producer of musical plays or operas at
this period. James Shirley's interlude, The Con-
tention of A j ax and Ulysses (1659), anc* a musical
drama. The Marriage of Ocean and Britannia^ by
Richard Flecknoe (1659), were two that may be
classed as operas or masques. Shirley wrote a num-
ber of masques and interludes which were pro-
duced between 1633 and 1659. The brothers
William and Henry Lawes chiefly supplied the
music.
When Charles II came to the throne in 1660
the ban on the theatre was removed, and his
known taste in theatrical performances and music
gave great encouragement to the drama, musical
and otherwise.
It is not my purpose to follow closely the record
of the musical drama in England before The
Beggar's Opera saw the light, but a general idea
of what had been the staple fare in this class of
work may be useful in understanding what a great
revolution Gay's opera made, and how these pieces
of the pre- Restoration and Restoration periods led
up to the operas that John Gay ridiculed.
As is well-known, Charles, during his absence
from England, had acquired a French taste in art,
especially in that of music. He brought over with
him to his Court a number of French performers
Earlier OPERAS in England 1 1
and, in imitation of the twenty-four fiddlers of
the King of France, instituted a similar band of
violinists under the leadership of John Banister.
But high in the favour of Charles was one
Lewis Grabu, a Frenchman, who had come over
to England with his royal master. Whatever
Charles II thought of Grabu's compositions, the
common verdict of a later age, and indeed that of
his own, is not very favourable. Grabu was a
personage at Court and essayed one or two musical
dramas which fell very flat indeed. The first of
these was a sort of opera called Ariadne, or The
Marriage of Bacchus. This was translated from
the French and performed by 'the gentlemen of
the Academy of Music.'
But the work that he is best remembered by is
Albion and Allanius, an Opera, or Representation
in Musick. It was 'Set by Lewis Grabu, Esquire,
Master of his late Majesty's Musick,' and pub-
lished in a fine folio volume in 1687, 'For the
Author, and to be sold at the door of the Royal
Theater.' The words of this piece were by John
Dryden and dealt in allegory with the troubles
'of two princes united in common sufferings from
ungrateful and rebellious subjects.' Charles died
before Grabu had published his work and it was
dedicated to his royal brother, James II.
The opera is in three acts and of enormous
12 Earlier OPERAS in England
length, and is as uninteresting a piece of work as
may be found. 'Albion' and 'Albanius' are the
thinly disguised names for Charles and his brother,
the Duke of York, and the opera refers to the
different plots and oppositions that the two princes
had to face. It was acted at the Duke's Theatre
in 1685, after the death of Charles II. It was
well mounted, but it fell remarkably flat; and
during its sixth performance, on the I3th of June,
1685, the audience broke up in confusion, as the
news of Monmouth's invasion had just then
reached London.
Dryden gives a useful description of opera as
understood in his day. He says: 'An Opera is a
poetical tale or fiction, represented by vocal and
instrumental music, adorned with scenes, machines,
and dancing. The supposed persons of this musical
drama are generally supernatural, as gods, and
goddesses, and heroes, which at least are descended
from them, and are in due time to be adopted into
their number. The subject, therefore, being ex-
tended beyond the limits of human nature, admits
of that sort of marvellous and surprising conduct
which is rejected in other plays. Human impossi-
bilities are to be received as they are in faith;
because where gods are introduced, a Supreme Power
is to be understood, and second causes are out of
doors; yet propriety is to be observed even here....
Earlier OPERAS in England 13
Phoebus must foretell, Mercury must charm with
his caduceus, and Juno must reconcile the quarrels
of the marriage bed. To conclude, they must all
act according to their distinct and peculiar char-
acters.' Dryden here gives an excellent epitome
of the rules which governed the Italian and
Anglo- Italian operas of the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries. If the operas were
founded upon the Italian classic romances and
legends, the chief feature that was preserved
throughout the whole piece was the heroic char-
acter. When we realise this and remember how
Gay brought his opera into common-place life —
nay, into the degraded life of a prison, with char-
acters taken from its lowest phase — thieves, re-
ceivers of stolen goods, and women of the town
— we can well understand what a supreme blow
he gave to the mock heroics and high-falutin
speech and action that made up the operas which
he ridiculed. Dryden paid a great tribute of ad-
miration to Lewis Grabu which nobody appears
to have seconded. His royal master, Charles, was
dead, and James, the succeeding king, was prob-
ably not so enthusiastic over the French musician
as his elder brother. Grabu remained in obscurity,
but in 1690 he composed the incidental music to
Waller's alterations of Beaumont and Fletcher's
Maid^s Tragedy.
14 Earlier OPERAS in England
It was now that Henry Purcell arose to redeem
the music of the English opera from the poor stuff
that had hitherto held the ground. John Dryden
was one of the principal writers for the musical
dramas of his day, while others were Nahum Tate,
Thomas D'Urfey, Mrs Behn, and a few more.
The first effort of Purcell in the style of opera
was Dido and Mneas. The libretto is in rhyme,
written by Nahum Tate, the versifier of the
Psalms. The occasion of its production was this.
The proprietor of a young gentlewomen's board-
ing school in Leicester Fields, who afterwards
removed to Chelsea, was Mr Josias Priest, a
dancing master and composer of stage dances. His
connection with the theatre naturally inclined
him towards a dramatic representation to be en-
acted by the young ladies under his charge. Henry
Purcell, then a young man, who had already been
recognised sufficiently to be made organist at
Westminster Abbey, was commissioned to write
music to Nahum Tate's libretto. The date of this
is by no means settled. Early authorities give it
as 1675, but later researches seem to point to a
date seven or eight years later. The opera appears
to have remained in manuscript, except for certain
transcripts, until it was published in full by the
Musical Antiquarian Society in 1841 under the
editorship of G. Alexander Macfarren.
Earlier OPERAS in England 1 5
The music which Henry Purcell composed for
the dramatic pieces of his day was great in quan-
tity. No doubt his introduction to the theatre was
due to Josias Priest, after the young composer
had shown his capabilities in the music to Dido
and JEneas. The number of dramatic pieces for
which Purcell supplied the music between Dido
and his death in 1695 amounts to nearly forty.
Much of this music is merely of an incidental
character, but there is some that is operatic and
some that is on the border line. The Tempest^
altered by Dryden and Sir William Davenant
from Shakespeare, may claim to be opera. Diode-
sia^ or the Prophetess (1690), altered from Beau-
mont and Fletcher, is another piece of note, while
King Arthur (1691) and Bonduca, the last com-
posed in the last year of Purcell's life, 1695, are
notable examples of his full opera style. In The
Tempest occurs one of Purcell's most admired
settings, 'Come unto these yellow sands,' while
in King Arthur we get many a favourite lyric,
such as ' Come if you dare,' ' Fairest Isle all Isles
excelling,' 'Two daughters of an aged stream,'
and some others. For this latter opera Dryden
wrote the libretto and Josias Priest arranged the
dances. It was performed in 1691 with elaborate
scenery; it was well received at its original pro-
duction, and was frequently performed in the
1 6 Earlier OPERAS in England
following century. A notable adaptation of it,
with a performance, occurred in 1770, when Dr
Arne revived it at Drury Lane Theatre with
some additions by himself. It was again revived
in 1781, 1784, 1803, and 1842.
In 1692 Dryden's play. The Indian Queen, was
turned into an opera with added songs. Purcell's
fine song 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly' is
found in this, as well as 'Ye twice ten hundred
Deities.' The Fairy Queen, adapted from Shake-
speare's Midsummer Night's Dream, is also a
notable Purcell opera.
It is not my intention to dwell upon the great
subject of Purcell's operas or his music for drama-
tic pieces. The subject is so large and so full of
interest that it has been dealt with by writers on
musical history in a very full manner. Suffice it
to repeat that Bonduca^ a tragedy altered from
Beaumont and Fletcher, was put into operatic
form by Purcell and composed in 1695, the year
of the composer's death, and brought out in the
next year. It contains several songs that had a
separate popularity, such as 'To arms, to arms,
your ensigns straight display,' and the well-known
catch 'Jack thou'rt a toper.'
After the death of Purcell the English opera
declined. Although there were still living some
contemporaries of Purcell who were well able to
Earlier OPERAS in England 17
continue his work, yet, from some cause or
another, they do not appear to have sustained the
English opera to any extent. This left room for a
number of indifferent foreign musicians to place
upon the stage operas either wholly of Italian
origin or founded upon the Italian model. It is
this succession of Italian, and Anglo-Italian,
operas that Gay appears to have had in mind
when he determined to bring the class into ridicule.
Opera now languished in England for a few years
— for England we must really say London, be-
cause at this early period the provinces do not
appear to have made any attempt towards regular
concerts, much less dramatic entertainments.
It was in 1705 that Italian opera first gained a
footing in England, under the auspices of Thomas
Clayton. This musician, of mean talents, was one
of the King's band from 1692 to 1702. He went
to Italy and studied there, and, returning with
some knowledge of the Italian method of opera,
produced one of his own composition or, more
properly, of his own compilation. He had brought
from Italy certain operatic songs, and with the
aid of one Peter Motteux, who wrote the English
words (apparently a more or less free translation
of an Italian opera), made a concoction of plot and
songs with an English dress into an opera with
the title Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus. He produced
K. B.O.
1 8 Earlier OPERAS in England
this with the aid of Nicola Francesco Haym and
Charles Dieupart. It was performed at Drury
Lane on the i6th of January, 1705, with English
singers of note. These included Mrs Tofts, Mrs
Cross, and Mrs Lyndsay, while the male vocalists
were Leveridge, Hughes, and Cook. Clayton had
sufficient confidence in himself to proclaim his
work of the best, and for a brief period the public
took him at his own valuation. All writers agree,
however, that the opera was contemptible both as
regards words and music. It ran for twenty-four
nights in the first season and for eleven in the
next. In regarding the 'runs' of the successful
pieces in the eighteenth century and comparing
them with the prolonged successes of our own
day one wonders how these admittedly lengthy
eighteenth century runs ever paid for the cost of
scenery, vocalists' fees, and all the expenses that
belong to the theatre. The Beggar's Opera's run
of sixty-three nights appeared to be such a startling
event in those days as to have been dwelt upon as
a record.
There had arrived in England Margharita de
1'Epine, an Italian lady, who at once made her
mark as a singer of the highest class. She was
accustomed to sing Italian songs, and she sang
some of these between the acts of Arsinoe. It is
said that there was much rivalry between Mrs
Earlier OPERAS in England 19
Tofts and herself. Margharita, though possessed
of musical abilities far beyond the ordinary, was
not greatly favoured by nature as regards looks.
She retired from the stage in 1718 after having
sung in a number of Italian operas that had been
put upon the British boards, and married Dr
Pepusch, strangely enough the man who arranged
Gay's opera. Margharita de 1'Epine was not only
a vocalist of great merit but a skilful harpsichord
player, as is shown by the Fitzwilliam Virginal
Manuscript which belonged to Dr Pepusch, and
from which she was wont to play. Anyone who
has turned over the pages of the original manu-
script and seen the closely written music will
realise the difficulty of the feat.
Joseph Addison appears to have regarded Clay-
ton as a musical genius and allowed him to set
music to a dramatic piece which he had writ-
ten, Rosamond, founded upon the story of Fair
Rosamond and Queen Eleanor. This was per-
formed oh March 4th, 1707. The music was so
utterly mediocre that it killed all belief in Clayton's
skill in the art. Thomas Augustine Arne reset
Rosamond, his first great work, in 1733. So far
as we may judge from the published detached
songs (for it never appears to have been issued in
its entirety), Arne's music was tuneful and delight-
ful. 'Was ever nymph like Rosamond so fair'
2-2
20 Earlier OPERAS in England
was sung by Arne's sister, who took the title role,
while his younger brother was a page. The piece
was performed in March, 1733.
To revert to the Italian opera which absorbed
the English stage, Camilla was the next opera
after the Italian model. It was produced at Drury
Lane on the 3Oth of April, 1706. It was a direct
translation from the Italian by Owen McSwiney,
then manager of Drury Lane. The music was by
Marc Antonio Buononcini. It was performed by
the same company as Arsinoe^ and was well liked
by the Town; it was repeated in the following
year. In Camilla the celebrated singer Nicolini,
whose full name was Nicolini Grimaldi, made his
first appearance on the English stage. A native of
Naples, he sang in most of the Anglo- Italian
operas. Camilla was performed half in English
and half in Italian, the Italian singers, including
Margharita de 1'Epine, singing in their native
tongue, and the English singers in theirs. The
part of the heroine, Camilla, was sung by Mrs
Tofts, who made a great success of it and won
universal praise. She retired from the stage, men-
tally afflicted, in 1709, in the height of her fame,
and died in 1760.
Thomyris, Queen of Scythta was an opera after
the Italian manner written by Peter Motteux
with the music supplied from the existing airs of
Earlier OPERAS in England 2 1
Scarlatti and Buononcini. These were put into
form and adapted by Dr Pepusch. The opera was
performed at Drury Lane in the autumn of 1 707
and with renewed splendour in the following year.
The singers were Italian and English who each
sang in their own language.
A succeeding opera was Pyrrhus and Demetrius^
translated from the Italian by Manager McSwiney.
The music of the original was by Alessandro
Scarlatti, and this was adapted to the English
version of the words by Nicola Haym, who added
an overture and some additional airs. It was acted
on December I4th, 1708, and met with approval.
The music is of a quality far exceeding that of
Clayton's effort. As in Camilla^ the singers were
of mixed nationality and sang in their respective
tongues. The bulk of the public did not seem to
mind this extraordinary method of vocalising an
opera — they accepted it as part of the plan.
The performance of Pyrrhus is mentioned by Sir
Richard Steele in the fourth number of The Toiler.
After saying that a great part of the opera was
done in Italian, he tells us that 4a great critic fell
into fits in the gallery at feeling, not only time and
place, but language and nations confused in the
most incorrigible manner — He has... considered
the nature of sounds in general, and made a very
elaborate digression upon the London cries, where-
22 Earlier OPERAS in England
in he has shown from reason and philosophy why
oysters are cried, card-matches sung, and turnips
and all other vegetables neither cried, sung, nor
said, but sold, with an accent and tone neither
natural to man or beast.'
Pyrrhus and Demetrius was the last opera sung
bilingually, the succeeding operas being rendered
entirely in Italian and as a consequence the Eng-
lish singers were dismissed in favour of Italians.
The loss to the opera stage of such singers as
Leveridge, Mrs Tofts, and others was of course
great.
In 1710 was first acted the opera Almahide, the
supposed work of Buononcini. This was sung
entirely in Italian by the singers who had invaded
the English stage and replaced the sturdy English
voices by artificially produced ones. The next
opera to follow was Hydaspes. In this Nicolini
took the part of Hydaspes. The plot of the opera
was dramatic enough. Hydaspes, the brother of
Artaxerxes, King of Persia, is a rival to the King
in the affections of Princess Berenice. His brother
condemns Hydaspes to be devoured by a lion in
the amphitheatre while Berenice is placed to see
her lover's sufferings. Hydaspes with much vocal
effort begs the lion, which is supposed not to see
him at first, to 'come on.' The lion, who must
have been a very tame 'super,' accepts the chal-
Earlier OPERAS in England 23
lenge and there is a struggle, Hydaspes and the
lion pausing in the combat while Hydaspes declares
his love for Berenice and explains matters gener-
ally in florid Italian singing. Hydaspes strangles
the lion and, setting his foot on the beast in sign
of victory, asks if any other monster is available.
The people call for Hydaspes to be saved from
other lions and he is released from a perilous
position, all ending happily. The lion incident
seemed to provoke a good deal of good-natured
satire, and Addison in The Spectator pokes fun
at Nicolini's struggles with it. The opera was by
Francesco Mancini and it was acted in 1710.
The Italian opera was now about to undergo a
great change. Handel, who had made a reputation
for himself on the Continent and was Master of
the Chapel to the Elector of Hanover, had been
invited to England by several noblemen and lovers
of music. He came over towards the end of the
year 1710, without any design to settle in this
country. Aaron Hill, who had the management
of the Haymarket Theatre, at once sought him
out and prevailed upon him to write an opera for
his theatre. Hill suggested the plan of taking as sub-
j ect the episode of Rinaldo and Armida from Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered. The libretto was written by
Rossi, a poet of some merit who was employed
afterwards upon the libretti of other Italian operas.
24 Earlier OPERAS in England
Handel was so quick with his work that it is
stated that he composed the whole of the music
in a fortnight. The piece was performed on the
24th of February, 1711, and was an instant
success, audiences quickly seeing how superior
was the music of the new composer to that of the
Italian operas that preceded it.
The libretto was entirely in Italian, and the
Italian vocalists who had sung in the earlier
operas were employed along with certain others
who were in the service of the Elector of Hanover.
Dr Burney says that in the original score, though
not in the printed copies, was a .symphony of
twenty-one bars for octave-flutes in imitation of
the song of birds. By what was no doubt esteemed
at the time a very happy idea, a number of
sparrows were let loose. Whether Handel was
party to this stage trick or not there is no record.
Addison in The Spectator takes notice of this
particular point in the opera. In the fifth number
(6th of March, 1711) he, in the character of
Mr Spectator, speaks of having met a fellow with
a cage of sparrows on his shoulder. He elicits the
information that they are for the opera, to be let
loose at the end of the first act. He is jocular over
the circumstance and speaks of a design to cast the
story of Dick Whittington into an opera and to
let loose a number of mice as the sparrows were;
Earlier OPERAS in England 25
but he tells us that, when it was thus proposed,
Mr Rich, the proprietor of the Play House, ob-
jected that the single cat of Whittington could
not finish off the lot, and so this excellent idea
came to naught. Mr Spectator concludes: *I hear
there is a treaty on foot with London and Wise
(who will be appointed gardeners of the Play
House) to furnish the opera of Rinaldo and
Armida with an orange grove; and that the next
time it is acted the singing birds will be personated
by torn tits, the undertakers being resolved to
spare neither pains nor money for the gratification
of their audiences.'
The opera, as by ' Signor Hendel,' was published
by John Walsh and John Hare in folio. Walsh
is said to have made a profit of fifteen hundred
pounds by his publication, which led to Handel's
remark: 'You shall compose the next opera and
I will publish it.' Whether this is a true or a false
anecdote, there is little doubt but that the com-
poser would have as small a share in the profits of
the production as any one concerned.
The advent of Handel in Italian opera seems
to have placed on the shelf the prior Italian pro-
ductions and to have prevented any further supply
for the English stage. Rinaldo appears to have
been as elaborately staged as the earlier Italian
operas. That these had elaborate scenery and
26 Earlier OPERAS in England
'machinery,' as it was called, is shown by Addison's
article in The Spectator from which I have already
made a quotation. 'An opera,' he says, 'may be
allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its decora-
tions, as its only design is to gratify the senses and
keep up an indolent attention in the audience.
Common sense, however, requires that there
should be nothing in the scenes and machines
which may appear childish and absurd. How
would the wits of King Charles's time have
laughed to have seen Nicolini exposed to a tempest
in robes of ermine and sailing in an open boat
upon a sea of pasteboard. What a field of raillery
would they have been let into had they been
entertained with painted dragons spitting wild
fire, enchanted chariots drawn by Flanders mares,
and real cascades in artificial landscapes.' The
criticism is not very convincing, but it is rather
valuable in informing us how the operas were
placed upon the stage. They appear to have had
much the same elaborateness of scenery and effects
('machines') as the Victorian pantomimes of our
youth. Addison might have railed with justice
at the absurdity of playing Shakespeare and other
dramas in the fashionable dress of that period,
with Hamlet in wig, breeches, and cocked hat,
Ophelia and the Queen in hoops, and so on. This
was done not only in the days of Queen Anne,
Earlier OPERAS in England 27
but in later reigns. One thing he might have
touched upon as an absurdity was the dressing up
of the male characters in opera representations in
what were called 'shapes.' A 'shape' was a sort
of hooped petticoat reaching to the knees of the
actor, held out in a circle by means of whalebone.
The dress of the opera actors, both male and
female, was quite a travesty of what would have
been a correct dress for the part, and was as con-
ventional as the operas themselves.
Addison, however, makes a very pertinent re-
mark in one of his Spectator papers: 'There is no
question but our great grandchildren will be very
curious to know the reason why their forefathers
used to sit together like an audience of foreigners
in their own country and to hear whole plays
acted before them in a tongue which they did not
understand.' He complains that the producers of
Italian operas conceived that nothing was capable
of being well set to music that was not nonsense.
He continues: 'We are transported with anything
that is not English: so it be of foreign growth, let
it be Italian, French, or High Dutch, it is the
same thing. In short, our English music is quite
rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its stead1.'
Handel's success as a composer of operas did not
1 See the whole interesting passage in the eighteenth
number of the Spectator, March 21, 1711.
28 Earlier OPERAS in England
end with Rinaldo. He composed many others
which need not be catalogued here. Nor is it
necessary to mention the few Italian operas that
came as an importation from Italy between 1711
and 1728. Enough has been said in the preceding
pages to show the type of production from which
Englishmen turned when The Beggar's Opera
took the stage and cast ridicule on a style of
musical drama that had so much artificiality in it.
Suffice it to say that Handel's compositions
towered above all preceding work, and that much
excellent music lies hidden therein which might
with advantage be resuscitated. The following
pages must deal with the opera that Gay put
before the public and the Scotch pastoral which
influenced him in its method of arrangement.
THE GENTLE SHEPHERD:
THE FIRST BALLAD OPERA
the Italian opera was leading
English musical taste astray, the Scot-
*$j* tish nation held fast its own musical
tradition and was not influenced by
that of any other nation.
Even though the tradition that David Rizzio
was the composer of certain favourite Scots songs
may have been popularly believed, the people
made no further effort to dive into the music of
Italy for their songs. Nor were English songs
greatly in favour, except several whose tunes had
that particular 'snap,' or syncopation, supposed
to be characteristic of Scotch music. Many of
these English songs, such as might be written by
Thomas D'Urfey, with tunes by English com-
posers of the late seventeenth century, became
popular in Scotland and in time were incorporated
into her national song. An example of a late date
— Hook's song, 'Within a mile of Edinburgh
town' (1780), may be quoted, as also its earlier
version, 'Twas within a furlong of Edinburgh
30 The GENTLE Shepherd
It was Allan Ramsay, poet, wigmaker, and
bookseller, who first took Scotch song seriously.
Besides writing a number of songs which soon
became national, and re-writing others, he col-
lected many fragmentary remnants of the lyrics
of his country, and, getting his friends to help
him, he published a collection of these in The Tea-
Table Miscellany in 1724, adding three more
volumes at later dates. In 1721 he had published
a collection of Poems, some of which had already
seen the light in pamphlet form. Among these
poems was a dialogue in verse, ' Patie and Roger,'
followed a year or so later by 'Jenny and Meggy.'
In these two pieces lies the germ of The Gentle
Shepherd, a pastoral play published in 1725 under
the patronage of Susanna, Countess of Eglington.
It is doubtful whether Ramsay ever saw this
pastoral play on the stage in Scotland, although
Theophilus Gibber staged a version of it at Drury
Lane in 1730 under the title Patie and Peggy,
or the fair Foundling. This was a ballad opera
of one act with the Scotch dialect turned into
English and the whole condensed from Ramsay's
pastoral.
The Gentle Shepherd may claim to be the first
ballad opera giving the lead to Gay's Beggar's
Opera. Ramsay's pastoral was in rhyme, with
short separate songs adapted to Scotch tunes that
SCENE FROM 'THE GENTLE SHEPHERD
The GENTLE Shepherd 31
were well-known north of the Tweed. Versions
of The Gentle Shepherd, besides Patie and Peggy
mentioned above, were placed upon the English
stage, generally much shortened. The most
notable was one by Richard Tickell, with the
music arranged and harmonised by Thomas
Linley the elder. This was produced at Drury
Lane in 1781.
Although Ramsay used the same method that
Gay afterwards did, by employing popular tunes
for his songs, The Gentle Shepherd is as far re-
moved from The Beggar's Opera as anything can
well be; yet 1 think that it suggested to Gay the
style in which to write his opera.
The Gentle Shepherd bears the sub-title ' A pas-
toral comedy,' and this must be remembered in
reading the note in Spence's Anecdotes, which
gives the account of the conception of The Beggar's
Opera in Pope's own words: 4Dr Swift had been
observing once to Mr Gay what an odd pretty
sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make.'
In these words we have an indication that Swift
and Gay had been reading or discussing The Gentle
Shepherd, the Scotch 'Pastoral,' and Ramsay's
employment of popular tunes for the songs must
have given Gay a hint as to the method of intro-
ducing music.
Gay was under the patronage of the Duchess of
32 The GENTLE Shepherd
Queensberry, the wife of a Scottish Duke. He
had probably visited Edinburgh several times, and
was likely to have met Ramsay there. As is shown
by the number of Scotch tunes he employed in
The Beggar's Opera, he appears to have had not
only a knowledge of Scotch music but to have
admired it.
The plot of The Gentle Shepherd is well con-
ceived and sufficiently dramatic. As before men-
tioned, the writing is entirely in rhyme, even to
the description of each scene. The story deals
with the loves of two shepherds, Patie and Roger,
for Peggy and Jenny. Both the ladies and the
men turn out to be by birth above their present
station. There is a Sir William Worthy, who,
having joined Montrose, has had to flee the
country until the restoration of Charles II. He
returns in disguise as a fortune-teller and claims
Patie as his son and heir. There are other episodes
to work out a rather intricate plot, and the char-
acters include a supposed witch and a comic
countryman. The piece is well written and from
its first publication to the present day has always
been esteemed one of Scotland's classics.
The Gentle Shepherd would of course be well
known to Gay, Swift, Pope, and the circle that
surrounded these poets. Although the Scots
'Pastoral' differs so much from the 'Newgate
The GENTLE Shepherd 33
Pastoral,' I thinkt here will be no great strain in
coming to the conclusion that Ramsay's work
suggested the ''method,' at least, in which Gay's
comedy took the form of opera. It appears rather
strange that no previous writer has drawn atten-
tion to the above-named similarity of treatment.
K.B.O.
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA:
ITS CONCEPTION
ejS>)8(O continue the story of the conception
§> ryi •§§! of The Beggar's Opera, Gay seems to
|3£ 1 $|| have been struck with Swift's sug-
M^S^lM gesti°n °f a 'Newgate Pastoral.' Pope
gives an account of the writing of it in these
words: 'Gay was inclined to try at such a thing,
for some time, but afterwards thought it would be
better to write a comedy on the same plan. This
was what gave rise to The Beggar's Opera. He began
on it and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the
Doctor did notmuch like the project. As he carried
it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us and
we now and then gave a correction or a word or
two of advice: but it was wholly his own writing.
When it was done, neither of us thought it would
succeed. We showed it to Congreve who, after
reading it over, said "It would either take greatly,
or be damned confoundedly." We were all at the
first night of it in great uncertainty of the event;
till we were very much encouraged by over-
hearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next
box to us, say: "it will do, — it must do! — I see it in
the eyes of them." This was a good while before the
The BEGGAR'S Opera 35
first act was over and so gave us ease soon; for the
Duke (besides his own good taste) has a more
particular knack than any one now living in dis-
covering the taste of the public. He was quite
right in this, as usual. The good nature of the audi-
ence appeared stronger and stronger every act and
ended in a clamour of applause1.'
This narrative of how the opera was conceived
and written is the most valuable record regarding
the birth of The Beggar's Opera which we possess.
It is especially valuable for its direct and clear
statement given by one who was intimately asso-
ciated with Gay in his work. It also is most inter-
esting in its picture of the 'first night.' What a
company in that box! — waiting with Gay for the
public's verdict on a new departure in dramatic
entertainment. Pope, Swift, perhaps Congreve,
whose works were ever welcomed as assured suc-
cesses, and Gay modestly sitting in the rear, while
his friends were keenly watching the common
audience in the pit, the arbiters and best judges of
the fare set before them.
There is an interesting account of the production
of The Beggar's Opera in Pope's own words in
1 The above account of the conception of the opera
was learned from Pope himself by Joseph Spence and
appears in his Anecdotes, 1820. Dr Johnson used the
account in his Life of Gay from Spence's MSS.
3-*
36 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
his notes to The Dunclad. Though often quoted,
it may be appropriately reproduced here:
'The vast success of it was unprecedented and
almost incredible — It was acted in London sixty-
three days uninterrupted and renewed the next
season with equal applause. It spread into all the
great towns of England, was played in many places
to the thirtieth and fortieth time, at Bath and
Bristol fifty, etc. It made its progress into Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland where it was performed
twenty-four days together; it was lastly acted in
Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the
author only, the ladies carried about with them
the favourite songs of it in fans, and houses were
furnished with it in screens. The person who
acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once
the favourite of the Town. Her pictures were en-
graved and sold in great numbers, her life written,
books of letters and verses to her published, and
pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests.
'Furthermore, it drove out of England for that
season the Italian opera, which had carried all
before it for ten years: that idol of the nobility and
people which the great critic, Mr Dennis, by the
labours and outcries of a whole life, could not
overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of
this gentleman's pen. This remarkable period
happened in the year 1728.'
Its CONCEPTION 37
The lines to which Pope affixed this note run:
While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends,
Gay dies unpension'd, with a hundred friends.
As Pope states, The Beggar's Opera was acted
not only in England but in many distant places
where the English language was known or spoken.
There is plenty of evidence that its wit and satire
was appreciated in these places in the same degree
as in London. In Chetwood's History of the Stage
(1749) there is a pathetic narrative of a touring
company who took The Beggar's Opera to
Jamaica. He writes:
1 1 had an account from a gentleman, who was
possessed of a large estate in the island, that a
company in the year 1733 came there and cleared
a large sum of money; where they might have
made moderate fortunes, if they had not been too
busy with the growth of the country. They
received three hundred and seventy pistoles the
first night, to The Beggar's Opera, but within the
space of two months they buried their third Polly
and two of their men. The gentlemen of the island
for some time took their turns upon the stage, to
keep up the diversion; but this did not hold long,
for in two months more there were but one old
man, a boy, and a woman of the company left.
The rest died either with the country distemper
or the common beverage of the place, the noble
38 The BEGGAR'S Opera
spirit of rum punch which is generally fatal to
new-comers. The shattered remains, with upwards
of two thousand pistoles in bank, embarked for
Carolina to join another company at Charlestown,
but were cast away in the voyage. Had the com-
pany been more blessed with the virtue of sobriety
they might perhaps have lived to carry home the
liberality of those generous islanders.'
JOHN GAY
> to John Gay, the author, the follow-
Ajjft ing facts may be of interest. He was
p£ born at Barnstaple in 1685 and edu-
j£ cated at the Free School there. His
London life began behind the counter of a mercer's
shop in the Strand, but fate directed a small legacy,
sufficient to enable him to escape from shop life.
He turned his attention to literature in his leisure
time. In 1712 he was a domestic steward to the
Duchess of Monmouth, and two years afterwards
he accompanied the Earl of Clarendon to Han-
over, where the Earl had been dispatched on a
political mission by Queen Anne.
His disposition, his integrity, and his talents
gained him esteem and elevated him from mere
servitude. Caroline, then Princess of Wales, took
an interest in his literary work and to her he
dedicated his Fables^ the original purpose of which
was to lead by pleasant rhyme her young son,
Prince William, to paths of virtue and good sense.
What moral effect these charming fables had upon
the Duke of Cumberland is a question of doubt
when we remember his conduct at Culloden, after
40 John GAT
which he was chiefly known as the 'Butcher' of
that miserable battlefield.
Gay looked for more than flattery from the
great people who 'took him up,' and he found
one of his best friends in the Duchess of Queens-
berry, the 'Kitty beautiful and young' of Prior's
poem.
The Fables had won him fame and, as he thought,
Court favour, but he soon found this a broken
reed, and in several passages of his opera he after-
wards gave bitter expression to his conviction that
Court favour was as shallow and as false as was
proverbially alleged. He sought a place of dignity
at Court with a salary attached; but he was
offered, in 1727, the position of gentleman usher
to the youngest princess, a post he indignantly
refused. Gay's friends took up his cause warmly
— perhaps too warmly, as he appears to have lost
much of the little favour he already had. Chief
among his supporters was the warm-hearted and
impulsive Duchess of Queensberry. He had already
made many literary friends, among whom were
Pope and Swift, two powerful allies.
The Beggar's Opera was not his first dramatic
effort; he had long been writing for the stage, and
his first work was The Mohocks, a tragl-comlcal
farce as it Is acted near the Watch House in Covent
Garden. This was an exposition of the brutality
John GAY 41
of those men of fashion who banded themselves
together for the purpose of night outrages on
innocent people and general wayfarers. By these
outrages they fully justified the name of the tribe
of wild Indians which they assumed. The play
was put forth and published anonymously in 1712,
but never acted. Gay's next venture was The
Wife of Eath^ in part taken from Chaucer. This
was acted at Drury Lane in 1713, but with little
success. After The Beggar's Opera had made its
author famous he tried The Wife of Bath at
Lincoln's Inn Theatre in 1730, but it again
failed to attract attention.
Next followed what Gay called 'A tragi-comi-
pastoral farce,' entitled The What d'ye callit^ title
as vague as Shakespeare's As you like it. The What
d'ye call it, a good-natured satire upon the tragic
and heavy drama then so much in vogue on the
English stage, was acted at Drury Lane in 1715;
its sole surviving fragment is the once popular
song 'T'was when the seas were roaring.' In a
three-act comedy, Three Hours after Marriage^
acted at Drury Lane in 1717, Gay is said to have
collaborated with Pope and Dr Arbuthnot. This
play, in spite of its merit, met with little popular
approval. Pope was so disgusted with the poor
reception of the piece that he never attempted
anything further in the nature of drama. The
42 John GAY
comedy, which was printed as by Gay alone, was
partly a satire upon certain living personages. In
1720 Gay printed among his poems Dione^ a
pastoral, which was not acted in the author's
life-time, though in 1733 it was set to music by
Lampe and acted, with alterations, at the Hay-
market. He also wrote Acis and Galatea, to
which Handel set music as welcome to-day as at
its birth in 1732.
Another of Gay's dramas, The Captives, was
acted at Drury Lane in 1724 with some success.
The Beggar's Opera followed this. Of the two
dramatic productions that Gay wrote afterwards
one was Polly, a sequel to The Beggar's Opera,
referred to later, and the other Achilles, a ballad
opera. This was a classic burlesque, in which
Achilles is in woman's clothes throughout the
piece, and songs to popular airs are used after the
manner of Gay's other operas. It was acted at
Covent Garden in 1733 after the death of its
author. George Colman made an alteration of it
in 1774 under the title Achilles in Petticoats, also
acted at Covent Garden, but with little success.
The plot and characters in The Beggar's Opera
are dealt with in the next chapter.
THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS
OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
principal characters are Mr
tifi HT"1 ^fe? Peachum and his wife (so called —
|% L Ǥ|3 but Mr Peachum asks his daughter
)^2j^®Q®)§( * Do you think your mother and I
should have lived comfortably so long together if
ever we had been married?'); Polly, their daugh-
ter; Lockit, the keeper of Newgate, and his
daughter Lucy; Captain Macheath, a highway-
man; Filch, a young man — a sort of assistant to
Peachum; and a number of women of the town,
rejoicing in such names as Diana Trapes, Jenny
Diver, Mrs Coaxer, Dolly Trull, Mrs Slamme-
kin, Suky Tawdry, Molly Brazen, and Betty
Doxy. The male 'supers' are Macheath's gang,
Jemmy Twitcher, Crook-fingered Jack, Robin
of Bagshot, Matt of the Mint, Nimming Ned,
and some others.
Peachum is a receiver of stolen goods and, when
it suits his purpose, an informer upon any of his
clients for the reward. He is associated with
Lockit and shares in matters to their mutual
advantage. If we are to believe Fielding's picture
of Jonathan Wild, we have in him the prototype
44 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
of Peachum. Throughout the whole country
there must have been many Peachums. Forty
pounds was the eighteenth century reward for
the apprehension or impeachment of a highway-
man, and hanging was a punishment for even
petty stealing.
Macheath is a man of many amours and of a
bright, happy disposition. He is the darling of the
ladies; but the amours that concern the play are
those he enjoys with Polly and Lucy. Polly is a
trusting creature, thoroughly in love with the
highwayman, to whom she believes she is legally
married — and, as it turns out, she is right in this
belief. Lucy Lockit is much of a vixen. She is
equally in love with Macheath, but burns with
jealous passion at his flirting with Polly. Lucy
believes she is all in all to Macheath, and he has
to exercise much diplomacy to satisfy each that
she alone is the favoured one. With very heart-
felt reason he sings:
How happy could I be with either
Were t'other dear charmer away,
in an interview with both ladies railing at him for
his inconstancy.
The play is opened by a sort of prologue, a
dialogue between a Beggar and a Player before
the curtain is drawn up. The Beggar begins by
saying: 'If poverty be a title to poetry I am sure
PLOT and CHARACTERS 45
nobody can dispute mine. I own myself of the
Company of Beggars; and I make one at their
weekly festivals at St Giles's. I have a small yearly
salary for my catches, and am welcome to a dinner
there whenever I please, which is more than most
poets can say.' He goes on to explain: 'This piece
I own was originally writ for the celebrating the
marriage of James Chaunter and Moll Lay, two
most excellent ballad singers.' In this we get Gay's
excuse for employing the common street tunes
instead of specially composed music. He next has
a tilt at the Italian opera, as the Beggar continues:
* I have introduced the similes that are in all your
celebrated operas: the swallow, the moth, the
bee, the ship, the flower, etc. Besides, I have a
Prison Scene, which the ladies always reckon
charmingly pathetic.' (There were prison scenes
in several of the preceding operas.) 'As to the
parts, I have-observed such nice impartiality to
our two ladies that it is impossible for either of
them to take offence.' The constant quarrels
between the ladies of the Italian opera is here
alluded to. The rivalry between Margharita de
1'Epine and Mrs Tofts is one example of this, and
others of later date might be quoted. The Beggar
goes on to say: 'I hope I may be forgiven that I
have not made my opera throughout unnatural,
like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative;
46 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
excepting this, as I have consented to have neither
Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allowed an
opera in all its forms. The piece indeed hath been
heretofore frequently represented by ourselves in
our Great Room at St Giles's, so that I cannot too
often acknowledge your charity in bringing it now
on the stage.'
The overture was composed by Dr Pepusch,
who was also the arranger of the melodies which
Gay had selected for his songs. Running through
the overture is that delightful air 'The Happy
Clown' (or 'One evening having lost my way'),
to which Gay adapted his song 'I'm like a skiff
on the ocean tossed.' Dr Burney says that Pepusch
'furnished the wild, rude, and often vulgar
melodies with basses so excellent that no sound
contrapuntist will ever attempt to alter them.'
Dr Burney was no doubt wise in his own genera-
tion, but richer harmonies have been fitted to
what he calls 'the wild, rude, and often vulgar
melodies.' His whole teaching led him to see no
beauty in the charming little snatches of melody
which have pleased nearly two centuries of
hearers.
The first scene opens with Peachum discovered
sitting at a table with a large account book before
him. To the air 'An old woman clothed in gray'
he finds excuse for his nefarious dealings:
PLOT and CHARACTERS 47
Through all the employments of life
Each neighbour abuses his brother...
The priest calls the lawyer a cheat,
The lawyer be-knaves the divine;
And the statesman because he's so great,
Thinks his trade as honest as mine.
Filch enters after the song, and here we get an
insight of the power which the informer has over
his victims. Filch brings word from Black Moll
that 'her trial comes on in the afternoon and she
hopes you will order matters so as to bring her off.'
Peachum tells Filch that he may assure her — 'as
the wench is very active and industrious you may
satisfy her that I'll soften the evidence.' Tom Gagg
is denounced as a 'lazy dog' — 'when I took him
the time before, I told him what he would come to
if he did not mend his hand. This is death without
reprieve. I may venture to book him (writes)
"For Tom Gagg forty pounds."' The message
sent to Betty Sly is that he will save her from
transportation ' for I can get more by her staying
in England. She may,' he continues, 'live a
twelvemonth longer.' And so forth in this strain
with a number of criminals.
That this method of the receiver and informer
is an accurate picture of the corrupt system in
vogue in the early part of the eighteenth century
there is enough evidence to show. Filch is sent
off to Newgate to 'let my friends know what I
48 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
intend; for I love to make them easy one way or
the other,' says Peachum.
He now reviews the work done by each of the
criminals under his thumb. Crook- fingered Jack
has been industrious, having to his credit a lengthy
list of articles, while Slippery Sam goes off the
next session, as he has 'the impudence to have
views of following his trade as a tailor, which he
calls an honest employment.' Mrs Peachum enters
at the mention of Bob Booty and hopes ' nothing
bad hath betided him,' as he is a favourite customer
of hers and gave her a ring. Peachum replies that
he is too fond of women and that ' the ladies will
hang him for the reward, and there's forty pound
lost to us for ever.'
All this satire, bitter though it be, is sufficiently
true in fact to show the evils of tempting men to
steal and then gaining money by betraying them.
There can be no doubt that numbers of men and
the women of the town made this a profitable
trade. Strange it is that eighteenth-century citizens
who lived while this was going on day by day
could find nothing in The Beggar's Opera to
condemn save what they imagined to be the
glorification of a highwayman, and missed the
whole point as to the evils which Gay so fearlessly
and so vigorously pointed out. In all the criticism
that has been levelled at the piece every writer
PLOT and CHARACTERS 49
has ignored this obvious lesson and could find no
other motive for the opera save political satire or
a ridicule of the Italian opera.
The conversation between Mrs Peachum and
her husband drifts in the direction of Polly and of
her fondness for Captain Macheath. Peachum
becomes alarmed at the idea of a marriage between
the Captain and his daughter, chiefly because of
the danger that Macheath might hang his father-
in-law by his evidence. By questioning Filch Mrs
Peachum discovers that Polly is duly married tp
Macheath. Polly now enters and is reproached by
both father and mother for this indiscretion. There
is a terrible to-do and much discussion by father
and mother as to the best to be done for their
interest and safety. It is decided that Macheath
must hang to keep the reward in the family. At
this Polly kneels before father and mother in turn
and pleads for his life to the beautiful old ballad
air belonging to The Children in the Wood.
Oh ponder well, be not severe,
So save a wretched wife ;
For on the rope that hangs my dear
Depends poor Polly's life.
It is said that the fate of the opera was un-
decided until this passage, but that the beautiful
air, the plaintive words, and the pathetic picture
of Polly kneeling aroused the enthusiasm of the
K. B.O. 4-
50 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
audience and that the opera went safely from
this point.
Mrs Peachum tells Polly: 'Your duty to your
parents, hussy, obliges you to hang him. What
would many a wife give for such an opportunity ! . . .
Away, hussy, hang your husband and be dutiful.'
Polly alone pictures to herself the execution of
her loved husband — 'Methinks I see him already
in the cart, sweeter and more lovely than the
nosegay in his hand — I hear the crowd extolling
his resolution and intrepidity. What volleys of
sighs are sent from the windows of Holborn that
so comely a youth should be brought to disgrace !
I see him at the tree. The whole circle are in tears,
even butchers weep. Jack Ketch himself hesitates
to perform his duty and would be glad to lose his
fee by a reprieve.'
She goes to tell him of his danger. Follows a
scene between Polly and Macheath in which,
after much protestation, the highwayman takes
leave of Polly. This concludes the first act of the
original version of the play.
The next act rises on a tavern near Newgate.
Here are assembled Macheath's gang — Jemmy
Twitcher, Crook-fingered Jack, Robin of Bag-
shot, and the rest. They are drinking, and Ben
Budge, who has just returned from transportation,
is enquiring after one of the gang, who, it appears,
PLOT and CHARACTERS 51
has had an 'accident,' meaning that he has paid
for his misdeeds with his life. There is much
thieves' philosophy talked and finally they join in
a drinking song, ' Fill every glass,' to a rich French
'round.' At its conclusion Macheath enters and
tells the gang that he must fly for h'is life, but that
he will continue to meet them at their private
quarters at Moorfields.
Now comes a chorus of the gang adapted to the
march in Handel's opera, Rinaldo.
Let us take the road.
Hark ! I hear the sound of coaches !
The hour of attack approaches,
To your arms, brave boys, and load.
See the ball I hold!
Let the chymists toil like asses,
Our fire their fire surpasses
And turns all our lead to gold.
The gang, 'ranged in front of the stage, load their
pistols, and stick them under their girdles; then go
off, singing the first part in chorus.'
Macheath, now alone, soliloquises and declares
that he loves the sex, 'and a man who loves money
might as well be contented with one guinea as I
with one woman.' He now sings one of the most
popular of the airs:
If the heart of a man is deprest with cares,
The mist is dispelled when a woman appears, etc.
The tune, 'Would you have a young virgin of
4-2
52 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
fifteen years,' figured in many a Victorian drawing
room as the bowing figure in the Lancers. He
now asks the tavern drawer if the porter has gone
for all the ladies, 'according to my directions.' The
drawer expects the porter back every minute, 'but
you know, sir, you sent him as far as Hockley
in the Hole for three of the ladies, for one in
Vinegar Yard, and for the rest of them some-
where about Lewkner's Lane. Sure some of them
are below, for I hear the b,ar bell; as they come I
will show them up.' And so now enters a bevy of
ladies of the town, among whom are Mrs Coaxer,
Dolly Trull, Mrs Vixen, Betty Doxy, Jenny
Diver, Mrs Slammekin, and some others equally
blessed with suggestive names. Macheath wel-
comes each as they enter with well chosen com-
pliments and advice. Then enters an opportune
harper, who, at the highwayman's request plays
'the French tune that Mrs Slammekin was so
fond of.' A French cotillon is danced ' A la ronde
in the French manner,' and near the end of it all
the ladies and Macheath sing to the air:
Youth's the season made for joys,
Love is then our duty;
She alone who that employs
Well deserves her beauty.
Let's be gay
While we may,
Beauty's a flower despised in decay, etc.
PLOT and CHARACTERS 53
After this pretty dance and song Macheath bids
the ladies take their places for wine — ' If any of
the ladies choose gin, I hope they will be so free
to call for it.' The ladies, however, are scant of
gratitude; for after some pleasant conversation
one lady playfully takes one pistol from him, while
another disarms him of the other. Jenny Diver then
says ' I must and will have a kiss to give my wine a
zest,' and so, while he is being embraced by two
of the ladies, they make signs to Peachum and a
constable, who secure him as prisoner. As he is led
off Peachum remarks: 'Ladies, I'll take care the
reckoning shall be discharged.' The women now
quarrel as to how the reward is to be shared.
I will now reiterate my former statement, that
so far there is nothing overdrawn in this picture
of life among the class it represents. That thieves
have been betrayed by receivers of stolen goods
and by their doxies is no new thing, either in
fiction or in real life, and I must again say that
those who have condemned The Beggar's Opera
for its supposed immorality have been utterly
blind to the moral it endeavoured, unsuccessfully,
it must be granted, to teach. There is nothing
said as to the immorality of the pictures and en-
gravings by William Hogarth. He is accepted as
a moralist and a sincere teacher, which without
doubt he certainly was, though the scenes he has
54 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
depicted are in many cases far more disgusting
than any scene in Gay's opera. Hogarth had the
highest sympathy with the opera and appears to
have been the one man in that age who under-
stood its mission. He disregarded its political satire
and its tilting at the absurdities of the Italian opera.
These were minor matters to men who thought
as broadly as Hogarth. Had Hogarth not been a
painter he would have written a Beggar's Opera
of far greater fierceness than gentle John Gay.
The next scene after Macheath's arrest is laid
in Newgate. Here he is being fettered by Lockit
and has to pay for a lighter set of irons than the
keeper of Newgate (for the purpose of extorting
money) threatened him with. This particular
imposition and form of cruelty is also a true record
of the sufferings the imprisoned had to endure
unless they could heavily bribe the jailer. Mac-
heath, left alone fettered in the cell, bewails his
lot. 'To what a woeful plight have I brought
myself! Here must I (all day long till I am hanged)
be confined to hear the reproaches of a wench
who lays her ruin at my door. I am in the custody
of her father, and, to be sure, if he knows of the
matter I shall have a fine time on't between this
and my execution.... But here comes Lucy, and I
cannot get from her; would I were deaf.'
Macheath is right in his anticipation. Lucy
PLOT and CHARACTERS 5
enters and rails at him in no small measure. I
betrays her jealousy of Polly Peachum and vows
that she could tear her eyes out. 'Are you not
married to her, you brute?' she queries. He denies
it. 'The wench gives it out only to vex thee' is his
excuse. He makes many promises, and as Lucy be-
gins to soften under that of marriage the scene closes.
Still in Newgate, we next have an interview
between Peachum and Lockit; they are sharing
their spoils with an account-book in front of
them. Lockit says: 'In this last affair, brother
Peachum, we are agreed. You have consented to
go halves in Macheath.' Peachum replies: 'We
shall never fall out about an execution — but as to
that article, pray how stands our last year's
account?' Lockit assures his colleague that he
will find it all clearly stated. Peachum complains
of the Government's delay in paying rewards for
information. 'Can it be expected,' he asks, 'that
we would hang our acquaintance for nothing
when our betters will hardly save theirs without
being paid for it? Unless the people in employment
pay better, I promise them for the future I shall
let other rogues live besides their own.' Lockit
remarks: 'Perhaps, brother, they are afraid these
matters may be carried too far. We are treated too
by them with contempt, as if our profession were
not reputable.' Now begins a quarrel between these
56 The BEGGAR'S Of era:
two worthies. Peachum draws attention to the case
of Ned Clincher: 'Sure, brother Lockit, there was
a little unfair proceeding in Ned's case; for he told
me in the condemned hold that for value received
you had promised him a session or two longer
without molestation.' Lockit waxes indignant.
'Mr Peachum,' he cries, 'this is the first time my
honour was ever called in question.' Peachum, vir-
tuous, replies: ' Business is at an end if once we act
dishonourably.' Lockit resents the imputation and
Peachum still further charges him with defrauding
Mrs Coaxer of her information money for the
apprehending of Curl-pated Hugh. He continues:
'We must punctually pay our spies or we shall
have no information.' Lockit bursts out: 'Is this
language to me, sirrah, who have saved you from
the gallows?' They seize each other by the collar,
Peachum saying, 'If I am hanged, it shall be for
ridding the world of an arrant rascal.' And so the
quarrel goes on, till it occurs to them that it is not
policy to fall out with one another. Peachum cries:
' Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong. We
shall be both losers in the dispute, for you know we
have it in our power to hang each other. You
should not be so passionate.' 'Nor you so pro-
voking,' replies Lockit, and so the altercation ends.
Lucy now enters and greets her father. She is
scolded for grieving over the coming fate of her
PLOT and CHARACTERS 57
lover Macheath. Lockit uses the same reasoning
that Peachum used to his daughter, concluding,
'Look ye, Lucy, there is no saving him, so I
think you must even do like other widows — buy
yourself weeds and be cheerful... So make yourself
as easy as you can by getting all you can from him.'
Lucy then has an interview with Macheath.
The highwayman suggests that a bribe of twenty
pounds might lead to his escape. Lucy assures him
that 'what love or money can do shall be done.'
At this moment Polly rushes into the scene crying
for her 'dear husband,' to the consternation of
Macheath, who has vowed to Lucy that he is not
married to Polly.
In this scene occurs that pretty song, once so
popular, sung by Polly:
Cease your funning;
Force or cunning
Never shall my heart trepan.
All these sallies
Are but malice
To seduce my constant man, etc.
This is followed by the dialogue song sung by
Lucy and Polly:
Why how now, Madam Flirt ?
If you thus must chatter
And are for flinging dirt,
Let's try who best can spatter,
Madam Flirt!
58 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
Polly replies:
Why how now, saucy jade ?
Sure the wench is tipsy !
How can you see me made
The scoff of such a gipsy ?
Saucy jade!
Peachum comes in and drags Polly away. Mac-
heath, left alone with Lucy, assures her that Polly
has no claim on him; Lucy believes him. She
steals the keys and effects his release.
After a short scene in a gaming house, into
which Macheath has ventured, we find Lockit
and Peachum discussing the details of the stolen
goods in which they have shares. To them enters
Diana Trapes, who incidentally gives the where-
abouts of Macheath. They promise her a reward
for this information, and at a later scene in the
play he is recaptured and brought again to New-
gate.
Meanwhile there is an interview between Lucy
and Polly. Lucy disguises her hatred of Polly and
presses upon her a glass of poisoned wine. Polly
suspects Lucy of some mischief and does not
drink from the glass, dropping it as she sees Mac-
heath brought in under custody. Lucy and Polly
fall on their knees to their respective fathers and
beg for his life. This is a scene of which Hogarth
painted one or more pictures. The two fathers
PLOT and CHARACTERS 59
are obdurate, and Macheath is led off to the Old
Bailey for his trial. Polly bids Filch follow and
bring her a report of his behaviour at his trial.
Music is heard, and when Lucy and Polly have
retired there is a dance of prisoners in chains, as
their trials are put off until next session.
The following scene shows Macheath after his
sentence in the Condemned Hold. He is seated at
a table with a bottle of wine and a glass before
him. He sings a curious song, set to fragments of
ten songs, forming a sort of medley. It concludes
with:
Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as me,
I wonder we hav'nt better company
Upon Tyburn Tree.
But gold from law can take out the sting;
And if rich men, like us, were to swing,
TVould thin the land such numbers to string
Upon Tyburn Tree.
This is set to a very corrupt version of the six-
teenth century air, l Greensleeves.'
Some of the gang now enter and condole with
Macheath on his impending fate.
He tells them that 'Peachum and Lockit...are
infamous scoundrels. Their lives are as much in
your power as yours are in theirs. Remember your
dying friend! JTis my last request. Bring those
60 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
villains to the gallows before you — and I am
satisfied.'
In this little passage Gay points the whole moral
of the piece. It is not, as so many people have
thought, a glorification of the lives of thieves and
a highwayman, but an exposure of the vile system
which allowed such men as Lockit and Peachum
to exist, to make criminals for their benefit, and
to betray them to justice after they have served
this turn, for the reward.
Polly and Lucy now arrive to take leave of
their lover. Macheath advises them to ship them-
selves off to the West Indies, 'where you'll have
a fair chance of getting a husband apiece, or, by
good luck, two or three, as you like best.'
In the midst of this scene the jailer announces
'Four women more, captain, with a child apiece.'
'What!' cries Macheath, 'four wives more — this
is too much; here, tell the Sheriff's officers I am
ready.' Exit guarded.
The Player and the Beggar now enter. The
Player expostulates with the Beggar. He says:
' But, honest friend, I hope you don't intend that
Macheath shall be really executed.' The Beggar
replies: 'Most certainly, sir. To make the piece
perfect, I was for doing strict poetical justice.
Macheath is to be hanged; and for the other
personages of the drama, the audience must have
PLOT and CHARACTERS 6 1
supposed they were all either hanged or trans-
ported.' The Player cries: 'Why then, friend, this
is a downright deep tragedy. The catastrophe is
manifestly wrong, for an opera must end happily.'
'Your objection, sir,' says the Beggar, 'is very
just, and is easily removed; for you must allow
that in this kind of drama 'tis no matter how
absurdly things are brought about. So — you
rabble, there — run and cry a reprieve!- — let the
prisoner be brought back to his wives in triumph.'
The Player admits 'all this we must do, to comply
with the taste of the town.'
The Beggar now shows really what was in Gay's
mind when he wrote the play. He continues:
'Through the whole piece you may observe such
a similitude of manners in high and low life that
it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashion-
able vices) the fine gentlemen imitate the gentle-
men of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the
fine gentlemen. Had the play remained as I at
first intended, it would have carried a most ex-
cellent moral. T' would have shown that the lower
sort of people have their vices in a degree as well
as the rich, and that they are punished for them.'
Macheath is brought on the stage again and the
play concludes with a dance, Macheath singing
a song to the old tune, ' Lumps of Pudding,' after
confessing that he has legally married Polly. The
62 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
use of the above-named air caused it to be said
that the Italian opera had been driven off the
stage by 'lumps of pudding.'
Such, then, is an epitome of The Beggar's Opera^
one of the brightest, wittiest dramas of the
eighteenth century. It has had more invective
hurled at it during the two centuries of its career
than any of the many questionable comedies that
followed or were contemporary with it. What
political satire there was in it is of little weight
to-day. Surely everybody of that age knew that
politics were in a corrupt state and that each
statesman used the country and the country's
purse for his own advantage; and, what was still
more to be deplored, that art and literature for a
long time were under the ban or the protection of
one political party or another, and that the arts
were not judged entirely upon their own intrinsic
merits but were condemned or praised as they
came from the camp of a friend or an enemy. It
is quite obvious to modern eyes that The Beggar's
Opera was not wholly a political satire, as has
been stated; also that it was not wholly a satire
upon the Italian opera, though it levelled a shaft
at its absurdities. The active motive of the piece
was decidedly an exposure of the system which
produced and fostered such rascals as Peachum
and Lockit.
PLOT and CHARACTERS 63
There are oft-repeated statements to the effect
that Gay was indebted to several of his friends for
certain songs in the opera. For example. Sir
Walter Scott writes: 'About this time Swift is
supposed to have supplied Gay with the two
celebrated songs, afterwards ingrafted in The
Beggar's Opera, beginning "Through all the
employments of life," and "Since laws were made
for every degree." ' And again in Macklin's Memoirs
(1804), the statement is made, from the informa-
tion of the Dowager Lady Townshend, that ' The
modes of the court' was written by Lord Chester-
field, 'Virgins are like the fair flower' by Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams, 'When you censure
the age' by Swift, and ' Gamesters and lawyers are
jugglers alike' by Mr Fortescue, the Master of
the Rolls.
That Gay was indebted for any help in his
piece (save for very slight suggestions from Swift
and Pope) there is little real evidence to show.
The different statements that he accepted songs
written by others may be dismissed with very
little ceremony.
THE MUSIC OF THE BEGGAR'S
OPERA AND ITS SOURCES
)5§(N the prologue of the Beggar and
Player Gay tells us that the opera
was written to celebrate ' the marriage
°f James Chaunter and Moll Lay,
two most excellent ballad singers.' Here, then,
was the motive to use the common street tunes
with which everybody was then familiar, inter-
spersed with a few from more remote sources,
chiefly the French airs.
At this period Thomas Cross, a music engraver,
was flooding the town with roughly engraved or
etched songs, having the music and printed on
half sheets of paper. It had been usual, before his
advent, to put forth songs in collections of twenty,
thirty, or more, either the composition of one
musician or by a number of musicians. Such are
the publications of John and Henry Playford
under such titles as The Treasury of Mustek, The
Banquet of Mustek, and similar nomenclature. Dr
John Blow bewails the new method in his
Amphion Anglicus (1700) thus:
The MUSIC £s? its Sources 65
Music of many parts hath now no force.
Whole reams of single songs become our curse....
While at the shops we daily dangling view
False concords by Tom Cross engraven true.
The songs which Cross so industriously engraved
were mainly of the more popular class sung at the
theatres, etc. Many were by Tom D'Urfey.
When D'Urfey issued his various editions viWit
and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy^ he repro-
duced many of these songs in the six volumes that
he ultimately published — the last was dated 1720,
the previous five volumes bearing the date 1719.
It is quite certain that Gay must have possessed a
set of these books, and, as I shall endeavour to
show, to them he turned for many of the airs
employed in the opera. Gay also inclined to the
songs of Scotland, and we find that the bulk of
those selected are to be found in William Thom-
son's Orpheus Caledonius^ a folio volume con-
taining fifty Scotch songs, for the first time col-
lected together. The book is not dated, but its
entry in Stationers' Hall on January 5th, 1725-26,
establishes the date of its issue. It is probable that
Gay had a copy of this work, perhaps presented
by his patroness the Duchess of Queensberry,
who, with her husband, was a subscriber for three
copies. Thomson was a music master, who, per-
haps, instructed the family of Caroline, Princess
K.B.O. c
66 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
of Wales, afterwards Queen Consort. Thomson
dedicates his book to her, and his subscription list
appears to contain the names of nearly all the
English and Scottish nobility and persons of note.
Another source of Gay's selected tunes must
have been an edition of Playford's Dancing Master ,
which after its first appearance in 1650 ran
through seventeen or eighteen editions down to
the year 1728.
Dr Pepusch, a German musician, scholarly and
dry, was chosen to put basses to the airs and to
compose an overture. It is doubtful whether he
had any hand in the selection of the tunes. He
does not appear to have been able to speak very
good English, and it is noticeable that, while there
are a number of French tunes employed, there
are none of German origin, if we exclude Handel's
march from Rinaldo. Surely Pepusch, seeing
popular airs were in request, would have intro-
duced one or more German folk songs into the
opera if he had the duty of finding simple melodies
for Gay's verses.
As there are several French tunes interspersed,
Gay had no doubt access to a French collection,
which I have not yet been able to identify; or else
they have been noted down from songs sung by
some of his friends.
The following will give some information re-
The MUSIC & its Sources 67
garding the English and Scottish tunes employed
in the opera: —
I Through all the employments of life
Air: 'An old woman clothed in gray.' (This is
the opening tune to which Peachum sings his
excuse for his career.) The original song begins:
An old woman clothed in gray
Whose daughter was charming and young,
But chanced to be once led astray
By Roger's false flattering tongue.
This is on early eighteenth-century music sheets.
In The Dancing Master it is named ' Unconstant
Roger,' after the 'Roger' of the song.
II 'Tis woman that seduces all mankind
Air: 'The bonny grey-ey'd morn.' An Anglo-
Scotch song, the air of which is believed to be by
Jeremiah Clark. It is in vol. m of Pills (1719)
and on half-sheet music.
III If any wench Venus' s girdle wears
Air: 'Cold and Raw.' Another Anglo-Scotch
song, of which there are several versions. In vol.
m of Pills (1719) it is called 'The Farmer's
Daughter.' The anecdote given by Hawkins re-
lating to Queen Mary asking Mrs Arabella
Hunt, in Purcell's presence, if she could not sing
' Cold and Raw,' and Purcell introducing the air
into the bass of a birthday ode, is well-known.
5-2
68 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
IV If love the virgin's heart invade
Air: 'Why is your faithful slave disdained?' This
occurs in an indifferent form in Pills, vol. in
(1719). The set in The Beggar's Opera is much
finer.
V A maid Is like the golden ore
Air: 'Of all the simple things we do.' This is in
vol. i of Pills (1719) and elsewhere. It is fre-
quently named 'Marriage, or the Mouse Trap.'
Under the title 'Old Hob, or the Mouse Trap,'
the tune is in the second volume of The Dancing
Master (1719).
VI Virgins are like the fair flower
Air: 'What shall I do to show how much I love
her?' This is by Henry Purcell, from his History
of Dioclesian. It is also in Pi//sy vol. iv.
VII Our Polly is a sad slut
Air: 'Oh London is a fine town.' An early and
very popular air, set to a merry song. It is in
P/7A, vol. v, and on half-sheet music.
VIII Can love be controlled by advice
Air: 'Grim king of the ghosts.' The air is used
for N. Rowe's song 'Colin's Complaint' and
other songs. Pills, vol. vi (1720).
The MUSIC 6f its Sources 69
I X Oh Polly, you might have toyed and kissed
Air: 'Oh Jenny, oh Jenny, where hast thou
been? ' The song is in Pills, vol. i. It is also known
as 'The Willoughby Whim,' and as 'May Fair.'
To-day every school child knows the air as
'Golden slumbers kiss your eyes.'
X / like a ship in storms was tost
Air: 'Thomas, I cannot.' An early tune found
among music for the Virginals. A later printed
copy, as 'Thomas you cannot,' occurs in The
Dancing Master (1670), and elsewhere. In Scotch
collections it is set to ' My mither says I mauna.'
XI A fox may steal your hens, sir
Air: 'A soldier and a sailor.' In Pills, vol. in.
XII Oh ponder well, be not severe
Air: 'Now ponder well.' A beautiful old ballad
air used for 'The Children in the Wood.' The
tune, set to other words was, perhaps, first printed
in Pills (1709).
XIII The turtle thus with plaintive crying
Air: 'Le printemps rappelle aux armes.' Not traced.
XIV Pretty Polly^ say
Air: 'Pretty Parrot, say.' Said to be translated
from the French. It is on early half-sheet music,
as by Mr Freeman.
70 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
XV My heart was so free
Air: 'Pray, fair one, be kind.' Not traced.
XVI Were I laid on Greenland's coast
Air: 'Over the hills and far away.' A Scottish air
used in the play The Recruiting Officer (1706). It
is in Pills (1709), and many sets of verses have
been adapted to it. One early Scottish version is:
•The wind has blawn my plaid away.'
XVII Oh what pain it is to part
Air: 'Gin thou wert mine awn thing.' As 'a
Scotch song' it is on half-sheet music and under
the better known title, 'An thou were my ain
thing,' in Orpheus Caledonius (1725-6).
XVIII The miser thus a shilling sees
Air: 'O the broom,' also in Orpheus Caledonius.
XIX Fill every glass , for wine inspires us
Air: 'Fill every glass,' originally a French song
and probably a French tune. It is in Pills, vol. i
(1719), as 'A drinking song in praise of our
three fam'd generals,' in French with an English
translation.
XX Let us take the road
Air: March in Rinaldo. This fine tune is from
Handel's opera (1711).
The MUSIC &? its Sources 7 1
XXI If the heart of a man is deprest
with cares
Air: "Would you have a young virgin of fifteen
years.' An early air called ' Poor Robin's Maggot.'
The song and air above-named are in Pills, vol. I.
XXII Youth's the season made for joys
Air: 'Cotillon.' This is a French cotillon called
'Zoney's Rant,' in the third volume of The
Dancing Master (circ. 1726).
XXIII Before the barn door crowing
Air: ' All in a misty morning.' Under the title of
'The Wiltshire Wedding' this is in Pills, vol. iv.
An earlier name for the tune is 'The Fryar and
the nun,' in The Dancing Master, 1650 and
later editions.
XXIV The gamesters and lawyers
Air: 'When once I lay.' The proper title for this
air is 'The King's Delight.' It is in Musick's
Handmaid (1678), arid other of Playford's pub-
lications.
XXV At the tree I shall suffer with pleasure
Air: 'When first I laid siege to my Chloris.' The
words of the original song are by Sir Charles
Sedley. The air is in P/7/r, vol. vi (1720).
72 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
XXVI Man may escape from rope and gun
Air: * Courtiers, courtiers, think it no harm.' The
song is on early half-sheet music.
XXVII Thus when a good housewife sees a rat
Air: 'A lovely lass to a friar came.' On early
half-sheet music. The song and air are in Watts'
Musical Miscellany (1731).
XXVIII How cruel are the traitors
Air: "Twas when the sea was roaring.' The
original song is from Gay's play The What d'ye
call it. The music is on half-sheets.
XXIX The first time at the looking glass
Air: 'The sun had loosed his weary teams.' This
belongs to a song called 'The Winchester Chris-
tening,' set to the country dance called 'The
Hemp Dresser.' 'The Winchester Christening' is
in A Third Collection of New Song, the words by
Mr D1 Urfey (1685), and other places. In Scotland
the tune is set to 'The Deil's awa wi the excise-
man.' 'The Hemp Dresser' is in The Dancing
Master (1650 and later editions).
XXX When you censure the age
Air: 'How happy are we who from thinking are
free.' Composed by John Barrett and 'Sung and
acted by Mr Pack.'
The MUSIC & its Sources 73
XXXI Is then his fate decreed, sir?
Air: 'Of a noble race was Shenkin.' This song
appears in D'Urfey's play The Richmond Heiress
(1693). See also P/7/f, vols. n and iv. The tune
has been claimed as Welsh, but the music to the
play was by John Eccles and Henry Purcell. It is
probably by one or the other.
XXXII Yorfll think e'er many days ensue
(No title given to air.) The air was the stage
traditional tune for Ophelia's song, ' How should
I your true love know.'
XXXIII If you at an office solicit your due
Air: * London Ladies.' The tune is in The
Dancing Master, and different editions of Pills.
The song begins:
Ladies of London both wealthy and fair,
Whom every town fop is pursuing.
XXXIV Thus when the swallow^ seeking prey
Air: 'All in the downs.' This is an air to Gay's
song, 'Black-ey'd Susan.' It is by P. G. Sandoni,
a harpsichord maker and husband of the singer
Cuzzoni. This is the least known of the airs, of
which there were several, to Gay's earlier song.
XXXV How happy could I be with either
Air: 'Have you heard of a frolicsome ditty?' The
air was also called 'The Rant.' It is a seventeenth-
74 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
century air to which a number of songs were
sung. The song indicated in The Beggar's Opera
is ' Give an ear to a frolicsome ditty/ and describes
the adventures of a rake through the town.
Another title for the tune is 'The City Ramble.'
XXXVI Tm bubbled
Air: 'Irish Trot.' Probably an alternative tune to
'The Hide Park Frolic,' in Pills, vol. iv, p. 138.
XXXVII Cease your funning
(No title to air.) The tune is a late seventeenth-
century air, found on half-sheet music with the
song 'Constant Billy.' The original song begins:
When the hills and lofty mountains
And the vales were hid in snow.
It is also called 'Lofty Mountains.' The air
appears as 'Constant Billy' in the third volume
of The Dancing Master.
XXXVIII Why how now, Madam Flirt
Air: 'Gossip Joan.' The song 'Good morrow,
Gossip Joan' is late seventeenth-century. It is in
Pills, vol. iv, and on half-sheet music.
XXXIX No power on earth can e'er divide
Air: 'Irish Howl.' The tune is in the third
volume of The Dancing Master (arc. 1726).
The MUSIC & its Sources 75
XL / like the fox shall grieve
Air: 'The lass of Patie's Mill.' The song is by
Ramsay, and the air is in Orpheus Caledonius
(1725-6), etc. It is also found under the title "
' Peggy's Mill.'
XLI When young at the bar you first
taught me to score
Air: 'If love's a sweet passion, how can it
torment ? ' The air is by Henry Purcell and is
used in his Fairy Queen. It is printed in vol. in
of Pills and on half sheets. There was a later
setting of the song by Joseph Baildon.
XLI I My love is all madness and folly
Air: 'South Sea Ballad.' A tune to one of the many
ballads contemporary with the South Sea Bubble.
X L 1 1 1 Thus gamesters united in friendship
are found
Air: ' Packington's Pound.' This early air is
named after Sir John Packington. It is in print
in 1596^ and occurs in the Fitzwilliam Virginal
Manuscript, and was a popular tune through
several centuries, adapted to different songs.
XLIV The modes of the Court so common
are grown
Air: ' Lillibulero,' the well-known party tune
which, on the authority of Bishop Burnet, so helped
76 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
the cause of William of Orange against James II.
It was a quick step to a military march, and was
printed in 1686, arranged by Henry Purcell.
XL V What gudgeons are we men
Air: 'Down in the North Country.' A popular
seventeenth-century tune under various names
and with various songs. The particular song
indicated in The Beggar's Opera is 'The Farmer's
daughter of merry Wakefield.'
XL VI In the days of my youth
Air: 4A shepherd kept sheep.' The song is in
Pills, vol. v, p. 35.
XL VI I Tm like a skiff on the ocean tossed
Air: 'One evening, having lost my way.' The
title for this song is 'The Happy Clown'; another
title is 'Walpole.' It is in the second volume of
The Dancing Master (1718), etc.
XL VI 1 1 When a wife's in her pout
Air: 'Now, Roger, I'll tell thee because thou'rt
my son.' A traditional version of this song begins:
And now my dear Robin, since thou art my son,
I'll give you good counsel in life,
Go haste thee away and make no delay
And I'll warrant I'll get thee a wife.
The MUSIC & its Sources 77
XL IX A curse attends that woman's love
Air: 'Bessy Bell.' A Scotch tune, to be found in
Orpheus Caledonius and elsewhere.
L Among the men coquets we find
Air: 'Would fate to me Belinda give.' A song by
John Wilford, clrc. 1710.
LI Come, sweet lass
Air: 'Come sweet lass, this bonny weather.' The
tune is called 'Greenwich Park' in the second
part of The Dancing Master (1698). The song is
in P/7/f, vol. i (1719).
LI I Hither^ dear husband^ turn your eyes
Air: 'The last time I went o'er the moor.' The
Scotch song is in Orpheus Caledonius (1725-6).
It is an early Scottish tune.
LI 1 1 Which way shall I turn me
Air: 'Tom Tinker's my true love.' A very coarse
song. It occurs in Pills, vol. vi (1720). Another
tune, also called 'Tom Tinker,' is to be found in
The Dancing Master (1665).
LIV When my hero in court appears
Air: 'I am a poor shepherd undone.' As 'The
distressed shepherd' the song is in P///J, vol. vi
(1720). An earlier name for the tune is 'Hey ho,
my honey.'
78 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
LV When he holds up his hand
Air: ' lanthe the lovely.' The air is by John Barrett.
LVI The charge is prepared
Air: 'Bonny Dundee.' A Scottish air (not the
modern 'Bonnets of Bonny Dundee') in Orpheus
Caledonius (1725-6) and elsewhere.
LVI I Macheath sings fragments often songs in a
medley. The old airs are: 'Happy Groves,' by
John Barrett; 'Of all the girls that are so smart,'
Carey's tune to his 'Sally in our alley'; 'Britons
strike home,' by Purcell in Eonduca\ 'Chevy
Chase'; 'To old Simon the King,' one of the airs
beloved by Squire Western in 'Tom Jones' — it is
in print in 1652; 'Joy to great Caesar' — the air
is 'Farinels Ground,' and the song, called 'The
King's Health,' in P*//r, vol. n (1719); 'There
was an old woman' — the air is in The Dancing
Master (1703) as 'Puddings and Pies'; 'Did you
ever hear of a gallant sailor?' — the song and tune
is in Pi/fr, vol. in (1707); 'Why are mine eyes
still flowing,' in P///T, vol. n (1719); 'Green-
sleeves,' a very corrupt eighteenth-century version
of the Elizabethan tune — a number of songs set
to the late version of the air are in Pills.
LVI 1 1 Would I might be hanged
Air: 'All you that must take a leap in the dark.'
The song, with the air, is on half-sheet music as
The MUSIC & its Sources 79
A hymn upon the execution of two criminals by Mr
Ramondon.
LIX Thus I stand like the Turk with
his doxies around
Air: 'Lumps of pudding.' The tune is in The
Dancing Master (i 703), and the song with the air
is in Pills, vol. vi (1720). It is known in Scotland
as associated with Burns's song, 'Contented wi'
little.'
The following song is not at present in the first
edition of the opera, but occurs in the third and
other editions:
Ourselves^ like the great^ to' secure a retreat
Air: ' A cobler there was.' The song is a humorous
production called 'The cobler's end.' It is in
Watts' Musical Miscellany (1731). The tune is a
'Derry down' air, seventeenth-century, and has
been used for a number of songs, early and late.
POLLY: THE SEQUEL TO
THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
>)8(T is obvious that Gay, having made
such a success of The Beggar's Opera^
should wish for a further triumph on
_ _ ^e same ^nes* ^°^ Peacnum nac*
so pleased the town with her simplicity and charm
that he decided she should again figure as the
heroine. There is a slight hint in The Beggar's
Opera that Gay intended to place the scene of
this next venture in the West Indies, for Mac-
heath in the last scene advises Polly and Lucy to
ship themselves off to the West Indies, where,
he says, 'you'll have a fair chance of getting a
husband apiece, or, by good luck, two or three,
as you like best.'
Unfortunately Gay, or his political friends, had
aroused some ill-feeling in the opposite camp, a
political party which was then in power. It was
whispered that Gay was the author of certain
pamphlets which were displeasing — whether he
was so or not is not quite clear, but at any rate the
enemy was only too anxious to find a rope to hang
their dog, and Gay's new opera came to an un-
timely end. Rehearsals were in full progress and
P O L L
A N
OPERA.
BEING THE
SECOND PART
O F T H E
BEGGAR'S OPERA
Written by Mr. GAT.
Rarb antectdentem fceleftum
Deferuit fedc faent claudo. Hor.
LONDON
Printed for T. T H o M so N, and fold by the Book-
fellers of London and H'ejlminfler. 172.9.
[Price One Shilling and Sixpence^
TITLE-PAGE OF POLLY
POLLY 81
everything appeared to be going on swimmingly.
Gay left the libretto with the Lord Chamberlain,
who, without assigning any reason, prohibited the
play from being performed. As a matter of fact
it never was performed in Gay's life-time, and
probably this was no misfortune to the reputation
which Gay had won by The Beggar's Opera. The
Duchess of Queensberry, always an enthusiastic
patron of Gay, exerted herself towards a sub-
scription, and it is said that the profit from the
sale of copies was far greater than what he might
have received had the opera been performed.
The new opera, Polly, lacks all the wit and
brilliancy that has kept The Beggar's Opera alive
for so many generations. The plot is absurd, the
dialogue weak and poor, without any sparkle.
The characters do not enlist either liking or dis-
like, they are merely paste-board.
There is a little fun and satire in the 'Intro-
duction' or prologue. The Poet and the Player
meet. The Poet expresses his reluctance to give
the theatre a sequel: 'Contrary to my opinion I
bring "Polly" once again upon the stage.... My
dependence, like a tricking bookseller's, is that
the kind reception the first part met with will
carry off the second.' Sundry players enter. One
tells that it is impossible to perform the opera
to-night — 'The tenor... flung his clean lambskin
K.B.O. 6
82 POLLY
gloves into the fire; he swears that in his whole
life he never did sing, would sing, or could sing
but in true kid.' Signora Crotchetta is in a fury
because her character is 'so low.' The Player
reminds her that nine or ten years ago she appeared
in a character little better than a fish! The
Signora protests that the character in question
was that of a mermaid or syren. Then the bass
singer vows he will not sing save in pearl-coloured
stockings and red-heeled shoes. The fourth player
tells the audience that 'since the town was last
year so good as to encourage an opera without
singers J he trusts they will excuse them again and
'accept the proposal of the comedians, who rely
wholly on your courtesy and protection.'
The overture follows, and the first scene is the
house of Ducat, a West Indian trader, the action
of the play being wholly in the West Indies. The
songs are set, as in The Beggar's Opera, to popular
airs of the day — possibly not quite so good a
selection as in the previous opera. The old char-
acters are Polly, Mrs Trapes, Jenny Diver, and
Macheath, who now figures under the name of
' Morano,' posing as a negro. He has blacked his
face and become captain of a pirate ship. Polly
Peachum is introduced to Ducat by Mrs Trapes,
for no good purpose. She denies that she has been
transported and mentions that 'the misfortunes
POLLY 83
of her family' (hinting that her father has been
hanged) and a search for Macheath her husband
— transported — has brought her over to the West
Indies. Mrs Trapes tells her that Macheath
4 robbed his master, ran away from the plantation,
and turned pirate.' Polly accepts service as maid
to Mrs Ducat, but, seeing the trap she is in, seeks
the aid of this lady to escape. There is now an
alarm that the pirates are coming down and all is
in an uproar. At this juncture an Indian enters
and proclaims that his King will join forces with
the English Colony in defence against the pirates.
Ducat asks if Macheath is dead. The Indian
replies that it is rumoured that he is, but that a
negro named Morano is the chief of the pirates
'who in rapine and barbarities is even worse
than he.' Polly begs Mrs Ducat to aid her in
her escape from her husband and is dressed in a
suit of youth's clothes by Mrs Ducat's contri-
vance.
The opening of the second act shows a view of
the country, with Polly in boy's clothes. She falls
asleep, when enter five men of the pirate gang.
After drinking they dispute as to the division of
the world they are about to conquer. One claims
the whole kingdom of Mexico, and allots the isle
of Cuba to his fellow, who will only be satisfied
with Mexico. The clashing of swords awakens
6-2
84 POLLT
Polly, who comes forward. They now take Polly
with the intent to bring her before Morano.
Another scene shows Morano (Macheath) and
Jenny Diver. She has not changed in character
since her transportation, and Macheath's relations
with her are as they were in England. We gather
that it was she who persuaded Macheath to change
his name and personality. She now proposes that
he should rob the gang and fly with her to Eng-
land. Vanderbluff, the lieutenant of the ship,
reproaches Morano for his philandering with
women, when the other members of the crew
enter with Polly, still in boy's clothes, who is
supposed to wish to join the gang. There is a
scene in which Jenny Diver starts a flirtation
with the supposed boy and denounces him to
Morano. An interruption is caused by the gang
bringing in a prisoner, the Chief of the Indians.
Polly and the Indian are confined together. The
tide of battle turns, and the Indians with the aid
of the English Colony defeat the pirates and
Morano is captured. Polly pleads for his life, but
too late, as he is executed by the Indians. Polly
now is to be married to the son of the Indian
Chief, and the curtain falls.
The Indians are all highly moral, and voice
sentiments of the highest degree of virtue, thus
following the fashion of all eighteenth-century
POLLY 85
savages, Chinese philosophers, Turkish wise men,
and the like — a convention to be excused on the
plea that literary men of that day had never had
experience of the real thing.
More than one edition of Polly appeared in 1 729.
The first was in quarto — Polly, an opera, Being
the second part of The Beggar's Opera written by
Mr Gay. This was printed for the author; it had
an appendix of the tunes. There was also an
octavo edition, Printed for T. Thomson, and sold
by the booksellers of London and Westminster. This
has the airs, not very well engraved, from copper
plates on sixteen pages. There was also a Dublin
edition of the music, in small folio from engraved
copper plates — The Whole Mustek and songs of the
Second Part of the Beggar's Opera, sett with basses
proper for the violin harpsicord, or spinnet, carefully
corrected from the London Edition. This was
published by John and William Neale about 1 730,
or 1735-
The musical arrangement of Polly appears to
have been in the hands of Dr Pepusch.
THE PUBLICATION OF THE
BEGGAR'S OPERA
is not necessary to repeat the old
saying that the opera made i Rich gay,
and Gay rich.' It is stated that Gay
mac^e £2°°° as his share of the acting
rights; another account gives it as near £700. Mr
Charles E. Pearce had the good fortune to discover
a copy of the original agreement by which Gay
assigned to John Watts and Jacob Tonson, book-
sellers and printers, the copyright in The Beggar's
Opera and in The Fables^ for the sum of £94. IOJ.,
dated 6th of February, 1727 — really 1728, as the
new year in those days did not take its right date
before March; unless this particular chronology
is realised, much confusion and many mistakes
occur.
John Watts was the first printer of The Beggar's
Opera^ and also of the numerous ballad operas
which followed it. His press was in Wild Court,
Lincoln's Inn Fields, and it was with him that
Benjamin Franklin worked as a journeyman,
though before Watts printed the opera. The first
edition of the opera is in octavo — The Beggar's
Opera, as it is acted at The Theatre Royal in
THE
B E G G A R's
OPERA.
As it is Afted at the
THEATRE-ROYAL
IN
LWCOLNS-INN-FIELDS.
Written by Mr. G AT.
Nts hxc wvimus e/eni&JL Mart.
To which is Addtd,
The MUSICK Engratfd on COPPER-
PLATES.
LONDON:
Printed for JOHN WATTS, at the Priming- O0icc
in Wild-Court, near LintaMs- Inn- folds.
MDCCXXVUI.
CPrtcc «. (W.J
TITLE-PAGE OF THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
(FIRST EDITION)
PUBLICATION 87
Lincoln's Inn Fields, written by Mr Gay, to which
is added the musick engraved on copper plates;
London, printed for John Watts ij 2%, price is. 6d.
The 'musick' is the airs rudely engraved on six-
teen pages at the end of the book — the overture
was not given. The second edition, with the
overture, was printed also by Watts, but the
music was now cut on woodblocks and inserted
in the text. It is dated 1728. The third edition is
printed by Watts in quarto in a manner much
superior to the earlier ones; it is dated 1729, and
the music, including the overture, is beautifully
engraved, the airs having the basses. The music
runs to forty-six pages. Another edition ''printed
for J. & R. TonsonJ dated 1765, is in octavo
with an engraved frontispiece after F. Hayman.
This is a reprint of the second edition, with the
wooden music blocks inserted in the text. Some
of these blocks are carelessly placed upside down.
It has the overture also cut in wood. W. Strahan,
who succeeded to this Watts and Tonson copy-
right in the opera, published editions, with the
music, dated 1771 and 1777.
An edition of the music and words of the songs
is entitled The Excellent Choice, being a collection
of the most favourite old Song Tunes in The Beggar's
Opera set for 3 voices in the manner of Catches, or
for two German flutes and a Bass. By Dr Pepusch,
88 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
and the most eminent English masters; London
printed for J. Walsh. Oblong folio, circ. i745-5°>
51 pages. There are some of the airs omitted. A
fuller edition of the music is: The Beggar's Opera
as it is performed at both Theatres, with the addi-
tional alterations and new basses by Dr Arne for
the voice, harpsichord, and violin. Longman and
Broderip. Oblong folio. Circ. 1780. A year or
two later than this is the oblong folio edition,
following Dr Pepusch's arrangement, issued by
Harrison & Co., 18, Paternoster Row. A com-
panion volume in oblong folio by these publishers
is Polly, an opera, being the Second Part of The
Beggar's Opera. Oblong quarto editions of these
were also issued by Messrs Harrison, for the
German flute, at the same date.
Editions later than these, with and without the
music, are of course very numerous, and they
display the tamperings and omissions that the
opera was fated to suffer in Victorian times. One
of the most recent copies is a reprint of the 1765
edition with illustrations by the late C. Lovat
Fraser and an interesting foreword by him.
Of the indignities that the opera has received
there could be made a long list, but the following
will suffice. In 1777 a version by Captain Thom-
son was produced at Covent Garden with a view
to meeting the claims of the moral people who
PUBLICATION 89
thought that Macheath got off too lightly. The
highwayman is sentenced to the Hulks on the
Thames. He is here visited by Polly and Lucy
and resolves to become a virtuous member of
society. As the book was not printed we have no
information how the rest of the plot was treated.
The audience had the good taste to reject such a
version.
The Beggar's Opera was translated into French
by A. Hallam under the title UOpera du Gueux.
This was acted in Paris in 1750.
In the early nineteenth-century revivals of the
opera, the three acts were condensed into two.
When Sims Reeves took Macheath, there is no
question that he was excellent in the part and
sang the songs appropriate to the character with
all the charm and voice that so enchanted the
Victorian audiences of the seventies and eighties;
but he introduced — no doubt by request of the
managers — songs from his repertory, 'Torn
Bowling,' ' Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen,'
and others, charming enough in the rendering of
such a fine tenor, but an anachronism that,
strictly speaking, might be open to censure. In
this particular he may have very justly pleaded
that he was but following an example such as
Incledon, or Braham, might have set.
The opera has been performed in modern
90 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
clothes, notably with John Braham as Macheath
in his every-day costume; and again with Madame
Vestris as Macheath in a rakish top hat of
the period; and other disquieting representations.
Among these silly performances must be ranked
one in which the male characters were enacted
by women and Polly, Lucy, and the other ladies
by full-grown men. Also another insult was a
children's performance. Those who organised a
child Macheath, Peachum, or Lockit, and a
Diana Trapes had neither sense of art nor decency.
Fortunately these last-named atrocities were con-
fined to the eighteenth century.
Another item may be mentioned — The Beggar's
Pantomime, or the Contending Columbines^ having
reference to a quarrel between Kitty Clive and
Mrs Gibber over taking the character of Polly.
The pantomime was a mere piece of fun with no
ill intention; it was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields
in 1736.
After Sims Reeves had figured in the opera (his
last appearance was in 1886), it does not seem
to have been revived on the stage until the
recent presentation at the Lyric Theatre, Ham-
mersmith, under the supervision of Mr Nigel
Playfair in 1920. The scenery and costumes were
designed by the late Mr C. Lovat Fraser. The
original music was charmingly arranged by Mr
SCENE FROM THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
PUBLICATION 91
Frederic Austin and the dances by Miss Marian
Wilson. The opera itself appears to be too long
for modern requirements; but, although there
were certain necessary cuts, these were made so
as not to injure the action of the piece, and in all
probability the rendering was more like the
original play, as Gay wrote it, than the repre-
sentations in which Vestris, Braham, and Sims
Reeves took part.
PRODUCTION AND CRITICISM
[HE Beggar's Opera was produced at
T$g| John Rich's theatre, Lincoln's Inn
^Fields, on January 29th, 1728 (or,
W<5$®<s$©W according to the method of dating
f&\ -f\lAj •f\lAj /°\
current at that period, 1 727— 8). It drew a fashion-
able crowd, many being political adherents of both
parties. It is likely that these political spirits were
somewhat disappointed, the one party that the
political satire which is here and there apparent
was of so general and so mild a character, the
other party equally vexed that there was so little
to lay hold of in a question of the suppression of
the piece. Everybody knew that the Court and the
Governing Party were corrupt, and the mere
generalisation of this was nothing to complain of.
Courts and Governments had been corrupt before,
and politicians had robbed the public purse without
scruple ever since the public had a purse to rob.
The common audience did not notice any par-
ticular point at which to take up cudgels on behalf
of politics. The brilliant dialogue, the wit, and
life-like conception of the whole story appealed
to them in a far greater degree than any flings at
Court or Government.
PRODUCTION and CRITICISM 93
The little pathetic picture of simple and trusting
Polly Peachum amid an atmosphere of rascality
was touching enough to the ordinary man and
woman, and there can be but little doubt that
Polly, with the charming acting of Lavinia Fen-
ton, had the greatest influence upon the success
of the piece. Miss Fenton, a young and obscure
actress whom John Rich had just taken into his
theatre, must have played the part of Polly with
the artless simplicity that is such a contrast to the
fierceness of Lucy Lockit, bred as she had been
at the bar of a low tavern and living amid the
corruption of Newgate. Miss Fenton's acting
found its reward, as she attracted the attention of
a duke and became Duchess of Bolton.
Thomas Walker made an effective Macheath;
the part was originally intended for Quin. John
Hippisley, originally a candle-snuffer in the
theatre, played Peachum. He was all that could
be desired in his part, and the like commendation
may be given to John Hall, who played Lockit.
In fact, Gay was fortunate in having so excellent
a company for the play. Thomas Walker became
a dissipated wreck in later life. He wrote at least
a couple of ephemeral pieces, including The
Quaker's Opera, which will be mentioned later;
he died in Dublin in great distress in 1744. John
Hippisley died at Bristol (where he had built a
94 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
theatre) in 1748. The Duchess of Bolton (Miss
Fenton) died a widow in January, 1760. Of the
other characters nothing of importance has come
down to us. In the original cast Mrs Peachum
was played by Mrs Martin, Lucy Lockit by Mrs
Egleton, and Filch by an actor named Clark.
It has been denied that The Beggar's Opera
was written in ridicule of the Italian operas of
the period, upon the assumption that it does not
follow the lines of the Italian productions. It is,
however, quite evident from the prologue between
the Beggar and the Player that a rap at the Italian
operas was intended. Besides which, there is a
contemporary acceptance of the spirit of ridicule,
for in the prologue to Colley Gibber's little piece,
Love in a Riddle, acted in 1729, while The Beg-
gar's Opera was in full glory, there is a passage :
If songs are harmless revels of the heart,
Why should our native tongue not bear its part ?
Why after learned warblers should we pant,
And doat on airs which only they can chant ?
And again in the Epilogue:
Poor English mouths for twenty years
Have been shut up from musick;
But, thank our stars, outlandish airs
At last have made all you sick.
When warbling dames were all in flames
And for precedence wrangled,
One English play cut short the fray
1 And home again they dangled.
PRODUCTION and CRITICISM 95
Gibber's play was, like Gay's, interspersed with
verses set to popular airs.
A poem by a writer named Lewis, published in
1730, entitled Old England's Garland, or the
Italian opera's downfall^ begins:
I sing of sad discords that happened of late,
Of strange revolutions, but not of the State,
How old England grew fond of old tunes of her own,
And her ballads went up and our operas went down.
All of which shows that the general public was
tired of the Italian absorption of popular music,
and that, if only on the score of bringing English
tunes into recognition, Gay's opera was welcomed
by the ordinary man. It has been mentioned
before, on Pope's authority, that ladies had fans
upon which the favourite songs and airs of the
opera were printed. This is a proof that not only
the vulgar appreciated them, but also the class
that prided itself upon its taste. The collector of
the odds and ends of a bygone period would no
doubt esteem as precious a specimen of these
Beggar's Opera fans, should such survive.
We can easily suppose that the upholders of the
Italian banner did not take all this lying down,
and for long after, even as late as the middle of
the nineteenth century, there was much holding
up of hands at the supposed immorality of the
play. Sir John Hawkins in his History of Music
96 The BEGGAR'S Of era:
has no stinted abuse. He says: 'The effects of The
Beggar's Opera in the minds of the people have
fulfilled the prognostications of many, that it
would prove injurious to society. Rapine and
violence have been gradually increasing ever since
its first representation. The rights of property and
the obligation of the laws that guard it are dis-
puted upon principle. Everyman's house is now
become, what the law calls it, his castle; or at
least it may be said that, like a castle, it requires to
be a place of defence. Young men, apprentices,
clerks in public offices, and others, disdaining the
arts of honest industry and captivated with the
charms of idleness and criminal pleasures, now
betake themselves to the road, affect politeness in
the very act of robbery, and in the end become
victims to the justice of their country. And men
of discernment, who have been at the pains of
tracing this great evil to its source, have found
that not a few of those, who during these last fifty
years have paid to the law the forfeit of their lives,
have in the course of their pursuit been emulous
to imitate the manners and general character of
Macheath.'
This so covers the general adverse criticism of
the eighteenth century that it is unnecessary to
quote further. Dr Johnson with sounder sense
said, 'As to this matter, which has been very
V- :.-§•: :
PR OD UCTION and CRITICISM 9 7
much contested, I myself am of opinion, that more
influence has been ascribed to The Beggar's Operay
than it in reality ever had; for I do not believe that
any man was ever made a rogue by being present
at its representation.' Boswell seems to have been
one who saw a certain merit in it which the rest
of the eighteenth century ignored, that is, as a
picture of real life. He says: 'I should be very
sorry to have The Beggar's Opera suppressed, for
there is in it so much of real London life, so much
brilliant wit, and such a variety of airs, which,
from early association of ideas, engage, soothe,
and enliven the mind, that no performance which
the theatre exhibits, delights me more.' Here we
get an appreciation of the true animus of the piece.
There is evidence to show that William Hogarth
was also much taken with the opera. Its satire
and protests against cruelty were sufficiently in
his line of thought to appeal strongly to the
painter of 'Marriage a la mode,' 'The Rake's
Progress,' and the minor works which he engraved
and published. He was friendly with the actors
and designed several benefit tickets for them. One
famous oil painting of his, of which he made one
or two replicas, shows the stage with the stage-
boxes filled with the notables who patronised the
first performance. The scene is Newgate (and
probably a fairly accurate view), with Macheath.
K.B.O. 7
98 The BEGGAR'S Opera:
in the centre. On his right is Lucy Lockit appeal-
ing on her knees to her father, while on the other
side is Polly in the same attitude at her father's
feet.
Another work of Hogarth's is 'The Enraged
Musician.' This depicts Castrucci, the leader of
the Italian opera, at an open window, fiddle in
hand, enraged at the noise of the street. A knife-
grinder, a milk-maid, a pewterer, a postman with
his horn, a chimney-sweep, a couple of cats on a
roof, a yelping dog, and other characters all help
to send the poor fiddler half crazy. The most
bitter touch of all is a playbill of The Beggar's
Opera pasted on the house side, on which can be
read ' Mr Walker as Macheath, and Miss Fenton
as Polly.' A beggar is bleating on a wind instru-
ment (an oboe or similar instrument) while a
woman ballad-singer is screeching at the top of
her voice, the ballad which she holds for sale,
'The Ladies' Fall,' being perhaps a satirical touch
at the ladies of the Italian opera whose songs
were eclipsed by the simple ballad airs sung by
Polly and Lucy.
George Hogarth, the musical critic of a later
generation, refers to The Beggar's Opera in his
Musical History (i 835) as a 'profligate production
. . .said to have been intended to ridicule the Italian
opera, which was then becoming very fashionable
PRODUCTION and CRITICISM 99
in England; though if this was its object, it cer-
tainly was not accomplished, as there is not the
slightest resemblance in any particular between
The Beggar's Opera and the pieces of the Italian
stage.' He goes on to say that ' its still continuing
to be performed, in defiance of public decency,
says little for the boasted improvement in the
morality of the stage.'
Whatever reason George Hogarth and those
who thought with him may have had as to the
desirability of keeping the opera off the stage, I
have not seen or heard of any adverse criticism
on the score of morality that the recent revival
has brought forth. Whether we are less shocked
at the representation of crime and general im-
morality than were our grandfathers is a matter
uncertain; but I think many will grant that The
Beggar's Opera stands well above a certain type
of comedy that is not infrequent on the modern
stage. Distance of period may of course have
something to do with this, and also broadness of
effect. At any rate, of the thousands who have
seen the recent performances I have heard of none
who have come away shocked.
7—2
LATER BALLAD OPERAS
>)9(T has been suggested that Gay might
have owed his inspiration to a play
produced in 1725 called The Prison
Breaker , or the adventures of John
Shephard. At this time Shephard and his escapes
from prison were much talked about. People
admired his pluck and daring and there was
much ephemeral literature regarding him.
The play was anonymous. Its scenes were chiefly
in Newgate. The characters were Shephard,
Jonathan Wile (evidently 'Wild'), and Rust, the
Keeper of Newgate. There is Coax Thief, and
his wife, several ladies of easy virtue, and a gang
of thieves, associates of Shephard. The play has
no wit and tries to get a comic element by the
introduction of a Quaker, an Irishman, and a
Welsh lawyer. After The Beggar's Opera had
been first performed, Thomas Walker, the original
Macheath, turned this play into The Quaker's
Opera, and in 1728 it was performed at Lee and
Harper's theatrical booth in Bartholomew Fair.
It was published by 'J. W.' (John Watts), with
the date 1728. Following the example set by Gay,
a number of songs were introduced set to popular
Later BALLAD Of eras 101
tunes. These tunes, cut in wood, are reproduced
in Watts' edition. Among the airs was that after-
wards used for 'The Miller of the Dee,' as well as
the one associated with 'The Vicar of Bray,' here
named 'The Country Garden.' Both these airs
appear for the first time in print in this opera.
Walker took the character of Shephard, probably
not successfully, for he was a bulky man of some
age, while the real Jack Shephard was a mere youth.
The Quaker's Opera was the first of the many
ballad operas, following the lines of the Beggar's^
that came forth in a flood after their prototype
had shown the way to success. These operas were
chiefly remarkable for their lack of wit and any
other merit, save that of preserving old English
tunes which, had not John Watts reproduced
them in his editions, might have been lost to us.
Watts was the chief publisher of the plays. They
were all in octavo, chiefly with the airs cut in
woodblocks inserted in the text. These octavo
operas have considerable value to the student of
English national song, as they contain, frequently
for the first time in print, copies of our English
national melodies, many which would otherwise
have totally disappeared.
As in The Beggar's Opera, fresh sets of verses
appropriate to the action of the play were written
to the old tunes.
102 Later BALLAD Operas
There was a rage for these ballad operas, poor
as the quality was, between 1728 and 1733. They
were acted at Drury Lane, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
Goodman's Fields, etc. Copies are not now very
common, but the following, almost all in the
writer's possession, will give nearly a complete
list of the ballad operas that succeeded The Beggar's
Opera:
1728 The Quaker's Opera.
„ j. eric lobe.
I
729 Love in a Riddle (by Colley Cibber).
„ The Beggar's Wedding.
„ The Cotter's Opera.
„ Flora, or Hob in the Well.
„ The Lover's Opera.
„ Momus turned Fabulist, or Vulcan's Wed-
ding.
„ The Patron.
„ The Village Opera.
„ Damon and Phillida. (An alteration of
Colley Gibber's Love in a Riddle.)
„ The Wedding.
1 7 30 Robin Hood. (This was probably by Thomas
Walker. Like The Quaker's Opera, it was
acted at Lee and Harper's booth in Bar-
tholomew Fair.)
5, The Female Parson, or Beau in the Sudds.
Later BALLAD Operas 103
1730 The Chambermaid.
„ Patie and Peggy, or The Fair Foundling.
(A condensed version of Ramsay's Gentle
Shepherd.}
„ The Fashionable Lady, or Harlequin's Opera.
1731 The Highland Fair, or the Union of the
Clans.
„ The Devil to pay, or Wives Metamorphosed.
„ The Lottery.
„ The Jovial Crew.
„ The Generous Freemason, or The Constant
Lady.
„ Silvia, or The Country Burial.
„ The Beggar's Wedding.
1 732 The Devil of a Duke, or Trapolin's Vagaries.
„ The Mock Doctor, or The Dumb Lady
Cured.
1733 The Boarding School, or The Sha?n Captain.
„ The Decoy.
„ The Livery Rake.
„ The Mad Captain.
„ The Fancy* d Queen.
„ Achilles. (By Gay.)
1734 The Intriguing Chambermaid.
1735 An old man taught wisdom , or The virgin
unmask* d.
„ Trick for Trick.
104 Later BALLAD Operas
1735 The Merry Cobler (sequel to The Devil to
pay).
1737 The Rival Milliners, or The humours of
Covent Garden.
The above is a fairly full, if not a complete, list
of the early eighteenth-century ballad operas, in
which the same method of using old or popular
airs as in The Beggar's Opera was employed.
After the last given date, 1737, the practice
appeared to cease until 1762, when Love in a
Village ; founded on The Village Opera of 1729,
was produced. Midas (1764) and a whole host
of others followed, in which the tunes were
partly composed and partly selected by the
arrangers.
i This second epoch of the English opera, in
which Storace, Dr Arnold, Shield, and others
were employed, is full of interest but rather out-
side the limits of the present volume.
INDEX
Achilles i 42, 103
— in Petticoats, 42
Acts and Galatea, 42
Addison, Joseph, 19; on
Hydaspes, 23; on opera,
26-7; on Rinaldo, 24-5
Albion and Albanius, 11-12
Almahide, 22
Amphion Anglicus, 64
Arbuthnot, Dr, 41
Argyle, Duke of, on The
Beggar's Opera, 34-5
Ariadne, n
Arne, Thomas Augustine,
7, 16, 19, 88
Arnold, Dr, 104
Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus, 17
Austin, Mr Frederic, 91
Baildon, Joseph, 75
Ballad operas after The Beg-
gar's Opera, 102-4
Banister, John, 1 1
Banquet of Mustek, The, 64
Barrett, John, 72, 78
Beaumont and Fletcher's
Maid's Tragedy, 1 3 ; Dio-
de sian, 15; Bonduca, 15,
16
Beggar's Opera, The, acted
in Jamaica, 37; con-
ception of, 31 foil.; de-
nounced by Hawkins and
others, 95 foil.; different
versions of, 89; editions
of, 86 foil.; music of, 64
foil.; plot and characters,
43 foil.; Pope's account
of first night, 34; purpose
of, 48 foil. ; recent revival
of, 90
Beggar's Pantomime, The, 90
Behn, Mrs, 14
Blow, Dr John, on music
publication, 64
Bonduca, 15, 16, 78
Boswell, James, on The Beg-
gar's Opera, 97
Braham, John, 89, 90, 91
Bridgewater, Earl of, 7
Buononcini, Marc Antonio,
20, 21, 22
Burnet, Bishop, 75
Burney, Dr, on Dr Pepusch,
46 j on Rinaldo, 24
Camilla, 20
Captives, The, 42
Carey, Henry, 78
Caroline, Princess of Wales,
39> 65.
Castrucci, 98
Chesterfield, Lord, 63
Chetwood, on The Beggar's
Opera in Jamaica, 37
Gibber, Colley, 94, 102
io6
Index
Gibber, Mrs, 90
— Theophilus, 30
Clarendon, Earl of, 39
Clark, Jeremiah, 67
Clayton, Thomas, 17 foil.
Clive, Kitty, 90
Coleman, Dr Charles, 8, 9
Colman, George, 42
Comus, 7
Congreve and The Beggar's
Opera, 34, 35
Contention of A j ax and Uly-
sses, The, 10
Cook (operatic singer), 18
Cooke, Henry, 8, 9
Covent Garden Theatre, 42,
88
Cromwell, Oliver, 8
Cross, Mrs, (singer), 18
— Thomas, (music engrav-
er), 64, 65
Cruelty of the Spaniards in
Peru, The, 9
Cumberland, Duke of, 39
Cuzzoni (singer), 73
Dalton, Dr, 7
Dancing Master, The, 66 foil.
Davenant, Sir W., 8 foil., 15
de 1'Epine, Margharita, 18-
20, ^45
Dennis (critic), 36
Dido and JEneas, 14, 15
Dieupart, Charles, 18
Dioclesian, 15, 68
Dione, 42
Drury Lane Theatre, 18, 20,
21,30, 31,41,42, 102
Dryden, John, 1 1 foil.
Duke's Theatre, 12
D'Urfey, Thomas, 14, 29,
65> 72, 73
Eccles, John, 73
Editions of The Beggar's
Opera, etc., 86 foil.
Egleton, Mrs, (actress), 94
Eglington, Susanna, Coun-
tess of, 30
Evelyn, John, sees Dave-
nant's operas, 8, 9
Excellent Choice, The, 87
Fables, Gay's, 39, 40, 86
Fairy Queen, The, 16, 75
Female players first seen, 9
Fenton, Lavinia, 4, 93, 94
First Dayes Entertainment,
The,*
Fitzwilliam Virginal MS.,
*9> 75
Flecknoe, Richard, 10
Fortescue, Mr, Master of
the Rolls, 63
Franklin, Benjamin, 86
French tunes in The Beggar's
Opera, 66, 70, 71
— version of The Beggar's
Opera, 89
Gay, John, and the con-
ception of The Beggar's
Opera, 31 foil.; choice of
airs in the opera, 65 foll.j
in political disfavour, 80;
life of, 39-42; objects of
his satire in the opera, 10,
13, 17, 48 foil.; profits on
the opera, 86
Gentle Shepherd, The, 30 foil.
Index
107
Goodman's Fields Theatre,
102
Grabu, Lewis, 11-13
'Greensleeves,' 59, 78
Hall, John, (actor), 93
Hallam, A., 89
Hammersmith, Lyric Thea-
tre, 3, 90
Hanbury Williams, Sir C.,
63
Handel, G. F., 23 foil., 42,
51, 66, 70
'Happy Clown, The,' 46,
76
Hare, John, (publisher), 25
Hawkins, Sir John, on The
Beggar's Opera, 95
Haym, Nicola Francesco, 1 8,
21
Hayman, F., (engraver), 87
Haymarket Theatre, 23, 42
Hill, Aaron, 23
Hippisley, John, (actor), 93
Hogarth, George, on The
Beggar's Opera, 98-9
— William, 53, 54, 58, 97-8
Hudson, George, 8, 9
Hughes, (operatic singer), 18
Hunt, Mrs Arabella, 67
Hydaspes, 22-3
Indian Queen, The, 16
Informers in the eighteenth
century, 44 foil.
Italian operas and singers,
2, 7, 13, 17, 21 foil., 36,
45, 54, 62, 94 foil.
Jailers, corruption of, 54
Jamaica, adventures of The
Beggar's Opera company
in, 37
Johnson, Dr, and his Life of
Gay, 35; on The Beggar's
Opera, 96-7
Jonson, Ben, 7
King Arthur, 1 5
42
Lampe (composer), 42
Lawes, Henry, 7 foil.
— William, 10
Lee and Harper's theatrical
booth, 100, 1 02
Leveridge (operatic singer),
18, 22
Lewis, on Italian opera, 95
'Lillibulero,' 75
Lincoln's Inn Theatre, i, 8,
41, 87, 90, 92, 102
Linley, Thomas, 31
Lock, Matthew, 9
Lovat Fraser, Claude, 88, 90
Love in a Riddle, 94, 102
— in a Village, 104
'Lumps of Pudding,' 61, 79
Lyndsay, Mrs, 18
Macfarren, G. A., edition of
Dido and £neas, 14
Macklin's Memoirs on The
Beggar's Opera, 63
McSwiney, Owen, 20, 21
Maid's Tragedy, The, 13
Mancini, Francesco, 23
Marriage of Ocean and Bri-
tannia, The, 10
Martin, Mrs, (actress), 94
Masques, 6 foil.
io8
Index
Midas, 104
Milton, John, 7
Minorca, The Beggar's Opera
acted in, 36
Mohocks, The, 40
Monmouth, Duchess of, 39
Motteux, Peter, 17, 20
Music of The Beggar's
Opera, 64 foil.
Musical Miscellany, 72, 79
Mustek's Handmaid, 71
Neale, John and William
(publishers), 85
'Newgate Pastoral,' A, 31,
32> .34
Nicolini Grimaldi, 20, 22-
Orpheus Caledonius, 65 foil.
Pack, Mr, (singer), 72
Packington, Sir John, 75
Patie and Peggy, 30, 31,
102
Pepusch, Dr, 19, 21, 46, 66,
85, 87, 88
Pills to Purge Melancholy.
65 foil.
Playfair, Mr Nigel, 90
Playford, John and Henry,
publications of, 64 foil.
Political satire in The Beg-
gar's Opera, 62, 92
Potty, 42, 8 1 foil., 88
Pope, Alexander, and The
Beggar's Opera, 31, 32,
34~7> 635 collaborates
with Gay, 41
Priest, Josias, 14, 15
Prison Breaker, The, 100
Purcell, Henry, 9, 14 foil.,
67* 68, 73, 75, 76, 78
Pyrrhus and Demetrius, 21-2
Quaker's Opera, The, 93,
100-1, 102
Queensberry, Duchess of,
32, 40, 65, 8 1
Ramondon, Mr, 79
Ramsay, Allan, 30 foil., 75
Recruiting Officer, The, 70
Reeves, Sims, 89, 90, 91
Rich, John, 25, 86, 92, 93
Richmond Heiress, The, 73
Rinaldo and Armida, 23 foil.,
51, 66, 70
Rizzio, David, 29
Rosamond, 19
Rossi, author of libretto of
Rinaldo , 23
Rowe, N., 68
Rutland House, theatre at, 8
Sandoni, P. G., 73
Scarlatti, Alessandro, 21
Scotch airs, 32, 65 foil.
Scott, Sir Walter, on The
Beggar's Opera, 63
Sedley, Sir Charles, 71
'Shape' (actor's dress), 27
Shephard, Jack, in drama,
IOO-I
Shield, William, 104
Shirley, James, 10
Siege of Rhodes, The, 8, 9
South Sea Bubble, 75
Spence's Anecdotes, 31, 35
Stage-plays prohibited, 7
Index
109
Steele, Sir R., on Pyrrhus, Tofts, Mrs, 18-20, 22, 45
21-2 Tonson, Jacob, 86, 87
Storace, Stephen, 104 Townshend, the Dowager
Strahan, W., (publisher), 87 Lady, 63
Swift and The Beggar's Treasury of Musick, The, 64
Opera, 31, 32, 34, 35, 63
Vestris, Madame, 90, 91
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered,
libretto derived from, 23
Tate, Nahum, 14
Tea-Table Miscellany, The,
30
Tempest, The, adaptation of,
by Dryden and Daven-
ant, 15
Thomson, Captain, 88
— T., (printer), 85
— William, 65, 66
Thomyris, Queen of Scythia,
20
Three Hours after Marriage,
4i
Tickell, Richard, 31
Walker,Thomas, (actor), 93,
IOO-I, IO2
Waller, Edmund, 13
Walsh, John, (publisher), 25,
88, 100, 101
Watts, John, (publisher), 71,
79, 86, 87
What d'ye call it, The, 41, 72
Wife of Bath, The, 41
Wild, Jonathan, 43, 100
Wilford, John, 77
William, Duke of Cumber-
land, 39
Wilson, Miss Marian,r9i
Wit and Mirth, 65
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